F 594 
.T25 
Copy 1 




Goipght}!^. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSnV 



I 




Son Ob THE Star.— Chief of tlio Aricarees. 



SKETCHES 

FRONTIER ^ INDIAN 



."* 



— ON THE — 

UPPER MISSOURI & GREAT PLAINS. 

Embhaoing the Author'^ Fersonai. Recollections of Noted Fron- 
tier CHARACTERS, AND SOME STUDIES AND OBSERVATIONS OF 

Wild Indian Life, during a continuous residence 

IN THE DakOTAS AND ADJOINING STATES AND 

TeBBITORIES BETWEEN THE YeARS 

1863 AND 1889, CORRECTED 

BP TO 1897. 

BY 

JOSEPH HENRY TAYLOR, 

AUTHOR OF "twenty YEARS ON THE TRAP LINE.' 

"kaleidoscopic lives," etc- 



mimiv^UL 



Third Sdition. ^#*- 

BISMARCK, N. D. 

Printed and Publislied by the Author. 
1897 



■ 115 



THE LiBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
One Copv Recbiveo 

MAR. 13 1902 

COPVWaHT ENTRV 

>-WiM / ^ / r ^ ■] 

OCA&» »«(«. No. 

2. {^ ^ 2 S 
COPY .J, 



VopyrlBkt, 1889, 1895 and 1897. 

BY 

,rOS£PlI HKNRY TAYrOR, 



CONTENTS. 

PIRST GROUP, 

rAGi 
INKf'ADlTA AM) SONS - - - ., 

A KATKI) \VAI{ I'AKTV --.---...._ 24 

l?r\[MEK l)A\ - - - - ------...- 80 

■I'HK SCALPLESS VVAKKIOR AND DAUGHTER . - - 35 

THE GREAT PLAINS IX 18«4 AND 18G5 43 

KORT BERTHOLD AGENCY IN 1869 ----- - . . eo 

FORT PHIL KEARNEY --------- 72 

A MEDICINE SNAKE'S CATASTROrHE . - 76 

A RIFT IN THE CLOUDS _...._ gJ 

A HOUND GRAND RIVKH ACJENCY IN 18SJ 86 

A WAR ^V()MAN 9S 

SECOND GROUP. 

EARLY DAYS AKOUND FOKT BUFORD 107 

A WAR PARTY OF THREE ------- 117 

LEGEND OF THK PAINTED WOODS - - - - 128 

THE LETTER IN CIPHER ------ 181 

BULL BOATING THROUGH THE SIOUX COUNTRY 139 

LONESOME CHARLEY --------- 147 

EDITOR KELLOGCi 167 

INDIAN MOTHKRS - - - 174 










PA(iE 

SOME INCIDENTS OF INDIAN WAKFAKE IST 

WITH A GIIOS VENTRE WAR TARTY 199 

HALF BREED CHARLEY -(>'' 

THIRD GROUP. 

MASSACRE ON BURNT CREEK BAR 212 

THE RENEGADE CHIEF - - - - 224 

BUCKSKIN JOE 2»8 

McCALL THE MINER 250 

FORT TOTTEN TRAIL 260 

POSY 274 

CHRONICLE OF THE SPANISH WOODYARD - 276 

THE PEACEMAKERS - - - 295 




THE Al'THOR. 



PRSFACS. 

FEW of the sketches of this work were or- 
iginally written by the author in a condensed 
form and published in the Woodstown (N. J.) 
Register, and the Dakota Herald of Yankton, as 
early as the year ] 873, under the general title of 
*'Wild Western Life," — but it was not until the 
autumn of 1880, in the conservatory of the Hart- 
rauft mansion, Pottstown, Pennsylvania, with the 
help of a rotary job pi-ess, that the author of the 
enclosed pages made his first attempt at book 
making in the original edition of "Frontier and 
Indian Life."* 

As the first edition was exhausted in the neigh- 
borhood of its publication many years ago, a sec- 
ond output was published in Washburn, North 
Dakota, in the winter of 189o-G, when, owing to a 
few imperfections, and some new light obtained on 
a part of the subject matter, while on an extended 
journey of over two thousand miles during the 
summer of 1806 — visiting some of the principal 
Sioux Agencies in the two Dakotas and Minnesota, 
— a new edition is herewith presented containing 
many changes and ii; a larger form than the two 
previous editions. Mau}^ sketches of both of the 
earlier works are omitted and replaced by others 
more nearly conforming to title of the book, and of 
more interest to the general reader or seeker after 
infoi-mation. in following lines during that period 
on the (Ireat Plains and the Upper Missouri river 
country, in which our charactej-s lierein chronicled 
were ))roininpiit act<i]"S. 







( 



mm 






o 



-1-3 



o 



X 



INKPABUTA AND SONS. 

[Note — The following; sketch was iii-it published by tlie author 
as u[ienin;f chrtpteis lu '"Twenty Years on tlie Traj) Line," printed 
ai Avondale, Pa., 1891. The original w^rk being now out of print — 
and nio"e au'.luntic information ^iu.^9 obtained Ijy the writer 
tron) partioipai;ts in some of the events, preceding and leading up 
lo the massacre at the Spirit, Lake ( Iowa) settlement, of March. 
1857. --historical accuracy and justice compel its re-pnblicaton in 
(he present loim. froni light obtained.] 

1 N nortliweslern Iowa, near what was once 
i known as the Dog Plains, lies the largest in- 
land body of water within the borders of that 
great commonwealih. It )'et bears its original 
name of .Spirit Lake, or as sijnietimes interpreted 
from the tongue of the primitive dwellers of these 
lands — "the lake w'here spirits dwell." 

It is beaatitully located near the southern part 
of this almost imperceptible plateau, and although 
somewhat singular in shape, the primival forest 
groups of Cottonwood, bassw^ood and sturdy oaks 
that once lined the background of its pebbly 
beech, made the view- to eye of such romantic and 
striking picturesqueness as to early make famous 
this watery domicile of the ghosts. 

Spirit Lake was the early home of the Mde- 
wakontons one of the four groups or bands of the 
Santees, supp'jsed parent stock of the Sioux or 
Dakota nation of Indians. But !ncessant wars 
with the Omahas of the west Missouri river coun- 
try, and the lowas of the lower Des Moines river, 



3 l'ku.\iii-.K A>n Imuan Liii:. 

with their confederates, made the tenor of Hfe so 
insecure to the Mdawakontons, they gave up that 
section as permanent residence, and made camp 
with their brothers along the rivers of what is now 
western Minnesota. 

From the southern shore of the Spirit Lake 
pours out a small stream that forms the Enah- 
wakpa, or Stone river of the Sioux; the Petite 
Riviere des Sioux, or Little Sioux river of the 
early French traders, by which latter appelation 
it is now known. But a few yards in width as it 
pours out from the lake, the Little Sioux river 
meanders along in a southwestern course for one 
hundred and twenty miles when its waters reach, 
and mingle with those of the wide and muddy 
Missouri. 

This river like its fountain, was once studded 
with groves of tall cottonwood along the bends of 
the lowlands, while on the great curved lines of 
the uplands with a northern exposure, groves of 
hardwood forests stood facing die outward plain. 
rhev had defied the widierino and scorchint^ blasts 
of the annual hres trom the prairies, and stubbornly 
held their own against every element of destruc 
lion, even in tardy count by ceiuuries. 

Notwiths'anding the fact that the .Santees had 
ceased to permanently occupy the lantl around 
.Spirit Lake, they still claimed the right of posses- 
sion and this right was so resj)ected by the gen 
eral government at Washington, and in a treaty 
wiili these .Santees, .A.ugust srh, i8si, reco^^nized 



l.Mvl'ADUIA AM; SuiNS . 4 

the claims ot the Mdewakontons and Wapekuta 
bands, and promised to pay them for their relin- 
quishment of the country about Spirit Lake, and 
the entire valley along the Litde Sioux river, as 

well. 

Some time previous to this treaty, in a local 
feud among the Wapekuta Santees, the chief, 
Tosagi, was slain by some discontents of his tribe. 
The leader of the chiefs murderers — Inkpaduta, 
or as interpreted into English— Red Point, a man 
of some prominence in the tribe, whose friends 
and relatives gathered about him to share his 
punishment— banishment and oudawry. 

Inkpaduia and his litde band betook themselves 
fearlessly to the Little Sioux river valley, and oc- 
cupied a seciion of country that the whole Sioux 
nation had heretofore regarded, at best, a perilous 
frontier. But with his handful of eleven warriors 
and their respective families, they moved from 
their camp on the headwaters of the Des Moines 
river and pushed southward until the came to the 
valley of upper Mill creek, a branch of the Little 
Sioux river, putting in from the west side near the 
present town of Cherokee. Here they found 
abundance of elk, deer and water game. 

Inkpaduiah. at this time was represented as an 
Indian somewhat deceptive in appearance. He 
was about hfcy years of age; tall and slim; his 
-voice soft and undertoned; his eyes weak and 
near sighted; a nose of Grecian cast; his face 
])adiy pTited with small pox, and his whole per- 



5 P^KONTIER AND Jn'DIAN LtFE. 

sonal make-up had the showing- of an htiml)le, 
ill-used mendicant, and gave little promise or 
forewarnings of the man whose influence and 
action in the near future would involve such wide 
spread ruin on both friend and foe. 

He had counciled wuth his tribe against the 
selling or transferring of their tribal lands to the 
whites and refused to be bound by the treaties 
made for that purpose. He had doggedly deter- 
mined to re-occupy the Little Sioux \'alley and 
hold it. With diplomatic skill and forethought 
he made a truce with the Omahas, and as an hon- 
ored guest, became an occasional partaker at their 
savory feasts. Indeed^ such a favorable impression 
did the outlawed and beggarly looking chieftain 
make on the susceptible hearts ot his whilom en- 
tertainers^ that himself and band were enjoined to 
make winter camp at or near the mouth of Maple 
river, a neighboring stream, one of the lower 
branches of the Little Sioux, and within an eas\' 
day ride ot the village of the; red Omahas. 

During the summers of 1S55 and 1856, atten 
tion of the immigrant 10 Iowa's vacant lands be- 
came directed to the northwestern part of the 
State. Sioux City was founded and located on 
the Iowa slate line at the mouth of P)ig Sioux 
river, antl the country tor a hundred miles around 
becanv tributary in scattered settlements. The 
vallc;y of the Little Sioux river, through its tertil- 
ity and line groves ot timber that lined its banks 
and its bluffs, became the homes of many of these 



ImvPaduta and Sons. 6 

pioneers. Isolated families or small settlements 
were dotted along at various points from its foun- 
tain at Spirit Lake, to its confluence with the 

Missouri. 

Along; the line of these settlement groups in 
the valley of the Little .Sioux river, was the village 
of Smithland, located near the break bluffs of the 
Missouri, and about eighteen miles away from 
that great inland artery. As the name implies, 
Smithland settlement was founded by one of the 
branches of the numerous tamily bearing that 
name. The homesteaders were located princi- 
pally on the west branch of the river, and scat- 
tered for several miles up and down stream. The 
lands were first staked ofi, and some of the fields 
turned over by the breaking plow in the spring of 
1855, so that by the autumn of 1856, many of 
the settlers had harvested their second crop. 

In the spring of 1856, Inkpaduta and his band, 
who had been alternating camp life on some of 
the upper branches of the the Little Sioux river, 
crossed over to the head of the Des Moines, 
and spent the principal part of the summer 
months hunting and fishing along that stream. 

As the autumn days approached and the flocks 
of geese and ducks that had been nesting among 
the morasses and sloughs inland, congregated on 
larger lakes and streams, so, too, these Indians 
by the law of supply in the pursuit of the hunters' 
life, followed along in the wake of the fowls. 

Therefore, as the S**ptember days brought thou- 



7 Frontier and Indian Life. 

sands upon thousands of water fowl to darken 
the sheenly and placid bayous of the Spirit Lake 
came down, also, Inkpaduta and his band of red 
people to feed upon the spread so lavishly set 
before them by the Giver of all good. 

Down around the outlet, and ten miles below, 
where the queer shaped Okaboji protects its for- 
est reserve, a few hardy and daring white settlers 
had brought their families with them, — took up 
claims and built themselves homes. If a feeling 
of intrusive resentment overspread the counten- 
ances of these members of the band of Shooting 
Leaves, they disembled their ieelings by impena- 
trable masques — and in smiling welcome — put 
forth their arms in decorious and impressive ges- 
ture, and clasped the hands of their white brothers 
with a hearty, good natured grip. 

About the last days of October, Inkpaduta and 
hi s band took up their Ime of march frcm the 
lower Okaboji, and passed along down the valley 
of the Sioux. In the early days of November, 
they reached the small settlement of Peterson, 
above the mouth of Waterman creek, and after 
spending a few days in an agreeable manner with 
the settlers thereabout, again trailed along eighteen 
miles to the new settlement at Cherokee, thence 
down to the Peary settlement eight miles further 
along stream. In no case did these Indians misbe- 
have, but seemed in every way to want to make 
their presence agreeable to these isolated fron 
tiersmen an d their families. l]v slow moves 



Lnktaiiuta AM) Sons, 8 

they luiiUed the lou' points unci timbered ravines 
for elk and deer of which the country then 
abounded, and put in the stream a few traps 
which they possessed, for the beaver, mink and 
otter, whose "sign" were plentiful along the banks 
and cut bends. 

By the middle of December Inkpaduta and 
his band had arrived at the outskirts of the settle- 
ment at Smithland. Near the house of Farmer 
Livermore,- three miles above die village proper, 
the Indians made camp with more than ordinary 
care, and it was made evident to the members of 
the Livermore household that these undesirable 
neighbors had come to stay for some weeks — 
at least. 

A few of the Indians formed themselves into 
a hunting party and scoured the Maple river 
for elk and returned brincrino- their pame to the 
permanent camp. A similar trip to the West 
Fork of the Little Sioux river was made by the 
red hunters with much success. Inkpaduta, Star- 
in-Forehead and a few choice spirits, made a trip 
to the Omahas, and exchanged some tanned elk 
skins for a little corn and some traders' goods. 

To their white neighbors about the Smithland 
neighborhood, and in their intercourse with them, 
the Indians were neither too fresh or impertinent 
nor did they become obnoxious by begging. But 
these San tee outcasts were good hunters and fair 
trappers, and many of the settlers "put their 
heads totrether" and concluded that the reds were 



9 Frontier and Indian Life. 

poaching upon forbidden grounds — that the game 
thereabout ought to be belong to the white people 
—and that Inkpaduta's band must move on. 

It was finally concluded among some of the 
more boisterous that a meeting of the settlers to 
talk over the situation should be held at the pub- 
lic stopping place in the village — and the time set 
would be St. Valentine's day. 

The members of the settlement were drummed 
up in all manner of ways — with every variation of 
stories floating for incentive action — fully thirty 
white settlers had assembled in Smithland town 
on that February day. The Smith brothers took 
the lead and one of them named as captain. The 
Indians must oro — but what the excuse, and what 
the course of action? For an excuse one settler 
said he "belie\'ed" the Indians had stolen about 
one bushel of corn on cob from his corn crib, 
while another pioneer 'thinks" they stole some of 
his hay. Another said he had missed a "critter" 
some time back, and he "shouldn't wonder if the 
tarnel red cusses had'nt eat it up." It did not 
seem to occur to the accuser that through the 
Indians' ability as hunters, their camp was well 
supplied with elk and deer mea% while many of his 
white neighbors were pulling through on -corn 
straight" ground in coflee mills, through lack of 
knowledge of the hunter's calling; and that some 
whice people had been known to steal a little 
from one another, sometimes, even on die froniier. 
However, the pronounced judgment of the Smith- 



Inkpaduta and Sons. io 

landers was that these Indians were a bad lot. 
The settlers needed the fur and o^ame on the Sioux 
river and its tributaries for themselves, and in the 
frontier vernacular of that day, the Indians would 
hp.ve to "puk-a-chee." 

It was further agreed in this council of war of 
the Smithlandcrs, that they would get together 
early the day to follow — bring their weapons — pro- 
ceed in military style up to the reds' camp, make 
a surround, take away the Indians' guns, and order 
them to get away as fast as they could ''wade 
through the crusted snow." At this time the snow 
was nearly two feet on the level, and is known in 
Iowa's history as the "hard w^inter." 

Accordinglv at the time appointed nearly forty 
well armed men marched up to the Indian camp; 
made the surround; and under penalty of death 
to Indians and their families ordered them to give 
up all guns, riries or pislols in camp. In answer to 
this request came torih from a tcepe opening, the 
near!)' sightless and haggard face of Inkpaduta. 
Through his interpreter. Half Breed Charley, he 
made a short talk. He declaimed ag^ainst such 
unwarranted proceedings by his white neighbors. 
His people or himself had done no wrong to 
iU^' white folks. He w^as taken by surprise. A 
surprise at the faithless and heartless request that 
came from people who boast of magnanimity 
and pride themselves in their justice to the cruelly 
wronged. With the deep snow— the cold winter 
-an ice bound plain; shortage of provisions in the 



II Frontier and Indian Life. 

camp, the taking of their *;uns would mean the 
buriel of their babes — their wives and even the 
men themselves, in the falling snow. 

Captain Smith the leader of the Smithland pos 
see told them to "go to the Omahas." 

"To go to the Omahas unarmed," the chief 
replied, "would be going to a speedier death, but 
none the less a surer one." 

The Smithlanders were firm. One by one, the 
Indians' guns were placed in their hands, eleven 
in all. Another order, and teepes came tumbling- 
down over the heads of suckling babes, swad- 
dling tots, and tottering belledames. The march 
of the last of the red occupants of Liide Sioux 
Valley to the "land of despair" was begun. 

As the Indians moved out in their line of travel 
Inkpaduta loitered tor a moment over the dying 
embers of his camp hre. He stuck a few short 
slicks in the ground by the ash heap. It was a 
meaningless, move to a few loitering SmichlauLlers, 
but an easy deciphered sign to an absent party of 
lour reds who, iniaware ot the hostile intentions 
of their white neiohbors, had q-oug out in the 
early morning to attend their line of traps, bhev 
had two guns with them — and the reLention of 
these riRes would mean much to a\'ert famine in 
the camp. Ii was the sign of alarm that ihe re 
tiu'uini^ trappers read in the heap of ashes where 
the chiefs lodoe had stood. A direction sii>n 
poinl('d the way lh(*y should go — and an added 
mark of caution and haste, completed the insu'uc- 
lions left for hem. 



I.\K!'.\i)i! TA Ais'D Sons, 12 

In the process of disarming, the Indians had 
noted that four of the guns had been been given 
to Farmer I Jvermore, and on the first night's 
camp up stream, after much dehbcration. Half 
Breed Charley and two companions were sent 
back to Livermore's tbr a negotiation. 

Money on an account was due Livermore by the 
Indians. They owed him five dollars. This would 
be paid him ii some of their own guns would be 
returned to them. After a promise th^t they 
would begone immediately after the exchange, a 
few gims were given the Indians and they went 
their way. 

Laie in the evening ot' the day in which the 
disarming of Inkpaduta and his band occurred, two 
s.trange appearing men presented themselves for 
food and lodging at the Smithland hotel. They 
listened to the story of the disarming, but no 
word came from their lips in commendation of this 
act. In die morning the subject — as uppermost 
in all minds at the hotel — was resumed. After an 
interval of marked silence, one of the strangers 
thus addressed the astonished group of talkers: 

"You go and bring back those Indians or take 
their guns to them. If you do not you will have 
ihe Slain ot innocent l^lood — and plenty of it — 
upon your hands." 

With these words the strangers passed out 
from the house and upon the highway, and never 
a soul in all the settlement marked their after 
presence again, or cleared up the mystery of their 
\isit to .Smithland town. 



I ^ Frontier and Indian Life. 

From the 20th of February until the first day of 
March, 1857, Inkpaduta and his band slowly waded 
throug^h the packed snow along- the frozen bed of 
the Litde Sioux river. The events of the night 
preceding the cheerless rest on the damp and fro- 
zen o-round, come down to us in borrowed memory 
from the verbal chronicle of Half Breed Charley. 
As they passed Cherokee settlement, the weary 
red trampers gave the first outward sign of inso- 
lence. At Peterson it developed into cnssedness 
and audacity, and when they reached the dreary 
snowbound plain about Lake Okaboji on the yth 
of March, they had descended still lower and be- 
came demons and fiends. 

From the 8di to isdi ot March, ihey destroyed 
over forty white people about the lakes — young 
and old, male and female. Four of the most 
comely of the females were carried into captivity, 
and but two of these survived the horrors ot 
the flight with their captors. Our story of Ink- 
paduta, as herein told, aims only to clear up trom 
fast disappearing witnesses* the opening scenes 
that led up to this butchery of th(; lirst western 
pioneers by Indians of the Sioux nation. 

Hereupon — the curtain falls. A sur\i\or ot the 
tragedy has given die details ot the mr.s.-acre — 
and told her padietic story triiihfuliy and wcll.-j- 

*David Hawihorne, Mrs. Livermore, Mrs. O, Pla- 
to, Edward Ilawes and Ii-a Waterman. 

t Mrs. .\l)bie Gardner Sharp. 



iMsi'ADUTA AND SoNS. 1 4 

About the middle of September, 1865, — the 
writer — after over a year in wandering across the 
plains of Kansas and Nebraska, and the moun- 
tainous districts of Colorado and New Mexico, 
returned to the village of Correctionville, Iowa, 
located on the banks of the Little Sioux river, 
and at which point was located Fort White, where 
as a member of Col. Sawyer's cavalry batallion, I 
had closed out a term of soldiering by the mus- 
tering out of the organization, twenty-two months 
before. 

The settlements along the river, were compar- 
atively yet in there infancy, and from Correction- 
ville to the Spirit Lake the homesteaders were 
few and far between, and the tributary streams 
or adjacent prairies were not located upon at 
all. As a consequence, fur bearing animals were 
found in considerable numbers thereabout and the 
market brisk with an upward tendency in fur vab 
ues. 

Professional trappers, therefore, were early on 
the move for choice game preserves — which were 
governed according to the rules of that craft by the 
right of possession to limited grounds. "Lime" 
Conistock, one of the most expert of these trap- 
pers, made (^arly preparations for a "scoop" of 
game lerriiory. I accepted a Mattering invitation 
from Mr. Comstock to accompany him as partner 
10 the headwaters of Mill creek, some sixty miles 
away from our starting point, the creek being 



1 :^ l-'koN'rii-.k AM) Indian Lii"i:. 

represented as teeming with beaver, mink and 
otter. 

One bright morning about the 20th of Septem 
ber, after our preparations were complete, we 
moved up the river trail. Eight miles from 
tht; village we made a stop, and became dinner 
guest of Ed Havves who had a local reputation as 
a good borderman. and on one occasion some 
years previous, on the West Eork of the Sioux 
river, headed a successlul fioht against an In- 
dian horse stealing party led by three of the sons 
of old Inkpadtita. 

The trail after leaving the pioneer's ranch, fol- 
lowed alono the curved river — here and there 
passing through cottonwood and oak groves, 
and with their autumn-tinted leax'es in \ariegated 
beauty, throuing an apparent halo on everything 
about them, — a soothing, restful spirit to our 
dreamy selves as we briskly passed along the en- 
chanted vale. 

On entering one of these orchard looking open- 
ings our team of ponies gave a unexpected aiid 
sudden snort. A red Indian of commanding ap- 
pearance, with a melancholly cast of countenance, 
stood l)y the roadside. We had met before and 
I knew him. It was Litde Priest, the broken 
hearted chief of the deported Winne-bagoes. He 
was wandering along the river with his family and 
campip.g among the groves, l^'om his direction at 
greeting — to all appearance, — he. had just walked 
down from a neiohboring hit-h buttt^ wh(^re he 



I\K",\i)r)A AM) Sons. i6 

could survey the surrountling landscape. From 
that pinnacle out in th<" far-away blue, he could 
see the shadowy outlines of his former home on 
the Blue F^ardi river. From four fintrers of an ex- 
tended hand he counted the number of enforced 
removals himself and his pacific tribe had passed 
froni one reservation to another, in vain attempt 
of outrunning- or hiding- in virgin lands to escape 
the clutches of their pale face brothers. Though 
gi\ ing up their possessions as demanded in rota- 
tion, governed only by the limited time space given 
by the advancing hosts of the axe, the shovel and 
the plow — with a dreamy and vague hope in the 
equity ot divine justice- that earthly possessions 
ends with earthly life — "that time rights all 
thin OS." 

A few miles further along, we observed a curb 
ing wreadi of smoke ascending from a heavy 
clump of willovv^s in a lowland bend of the stream. 
Comstock touk his gun to reconnoiter leaving the 
wriier with the team at rest. In about half an 
hour, partner returned. The smoke, he said, 
came from the camp fire of Hawthorne and Jack- 
son two of northern Iowa's most noted trappers, 
Comstock further remarked that the fur catchers 
had "strung i)ut a line" and would put in the fall 
mondis at that place. They had just returned 
from a "sign up" on Mill creek but were better 
pleased with the game prospects on the main 
-Stream. 



\j Frontier AM) Indian Liff,. 

In coinnuinicating this information, Comstock 
left out a very important as well as interesting item 
that had befallen Hawthorne and Jackson. Just ihe 
evening before these two trappers had reached the 
camp where we had found them, after a hard drive 
of thirty miles or more — twenty miles of which 
they had been followed on the run, helter skelter, 
up hill and down dale, by six dismounted Indi- 
ans, — Inkpadiita's hostile Santees. This, two, 
from the very place we were then going — the 
headwaters of Mill creek. But all of this I 
learned long afterward 

As we resumed our journey and lined out for 
the dividing ridges, I could not but notice the ex- 
treme solicitude of my partner, and the watchful- 
ness he exhibited at every suspicious looking 
object or "scare stone" ahead of us as we jolted 
along, and from these circumstances partially 
guessed that that he had not told all the news he 
had learned from the two trappers. 

We reached the first grove up Mill creek about 
sundown and went into camp. Rarly the next 
morning we hitched up and drove to the sec- 
ond fork of the stream where we made a halt and 
proceeded to sign up the vicinity. Comstock took 
his gun and traps, while as novice, I proceeded to 
make camp. In gazing around, I observed by the 
bending of the tall grass near the creek bed, the 
marks left I)y wagon wheels, and of horses feet, 
and where they had executed a semicircle turn. 
1 had also noticed, while watering the ponies at a 



Inkpaduta and Sons. i8 

beaver dam near by, that several moccasin tracks 
in the soft mud and all leading one way, viz: — the 
direction the wagon had evidently taken. 

When Comstock returned, I informed him of my 
discovery. He thought it was the tracks of the 
two trappers, "signing up." But when reminded 
that professionals ot this vocation use high top 
boots not moccasins in signing up beaver streams, 
he then suoo;ested that the tracks could have been 
made by a party ot elk hunters up from the fort 
at Cherokee. But the mystery was not cleared 
up to the scribe's satisfaction until several months 
had passed by. 

In May, i'~66, the writer again found himself 
trapping for choice fur bearers on Mill creek. By 
a twirl of fortune, Hawthorne and Jackson were 
my camp partners. The story of the chase by 
the hostile Santees the previous autumn was told 
me for the first time and the "jump up" occurred 
at the beav'M- dam already described. 

As the rapidly changing season commenced to 
"spot" the furs, my companions pulled out home- 
ward, leaving me to continue the "clean up" a few 
days longer. One morning wdiile looking after 
the trails, with some thought of raising them, I 
noticed asi odd dressed individual rounding a bluff 
at mouth of a deep ravine. Being well armed, 
and seeing the stranger had also a gun, and with- 
out noting an)-ihing except a trail he seemed to 
le follovunij, 1 called his attention to my pres- 



19 P'kontier AKi) Indian Liik. 

ence by a "hello." On nearing the man, I dis- 
covered that he was a half breed Indian. After 
greeting, he said in fair English: 

"Did you see some Indians pass here this morn- 
ing?" 

"No," I answered. 

"You were in luck they didn't see you!" 

"Why so?" 

"Because Inkpaduta's boys don't often let a 
chance like that slip." 

"Inkpaduta's boys." I repeated, mechanically. 

"Yes — Inkpaduta's sons!" 

Inkpaduta's sons! 

I well remember the sudden awakening from 
a stupid frame of mind when the half breed made 
mention of those once dreaded names. Trom the 
bloody trail at Spirit Lake — that reddened the 
March snows of 1857 — succeeded by the devasta- 
tion of the western border of Minnesota in 1862. 
and the several years ot terror following, which 
beset the pioneers and their families, the names of 
these outlaws were ever uppermost in the minds ot 
dwellers of Iowa's northwestern border, especially 
when sunmier or autumn davs broug^ht that inse- 
curity which would favor a predatory excursion 
from arj unforgiving, heartless and homeless foe. 
In the ten years that followed the massacre at 
Spirit Lake, Inkpaduta's band scoured the prair- 
ies with a price upon their heads. Theirs, too, was 
a vengeance unsatisfied. Ihe outbreak of ihr 




f^<^o' 



Gen. (teorge A. Custer. 
[From a Photograph, 1H74.J 



Inkpaduta and Sons, 20 

Sioux bands at Redwood and Yellow Medicine 
creeks, gave cover to these marauders to harass 
settlers of Little Sioux valley and the country ad- 
jacent, and no lone camper or traveler was safe 
in un frequent places, from a sudden raid of some 
of these red outlaws or were the farmer's stables 
or horse pastures ever secure from their midnight 
raids. 

Since General Harmar's command went down 
to defeat on the Wabash river, in October, 1 790, or 
General St, Clair's five hundred veterans laid 
down their lives to the victorious hosts of the 
Little Turtle confederacy the year succeeding — no 
victory was so passing complete to the red Indians 
as was the destrucdon of Custer's command by the 
Sioux and Cheyennes on the Little Big Horn, 
river, June 25th, 1876. 

\''ariou5 chroniclers have ascribed General Cus- 
ter's death, as the cuhninating episode in this 
later day fi.^ht, and to clothe the tragedy in the 
habiliments of the picturesque, have charged his 
death to die personal prowess oi' Rain-in-the-Face, 
or the Chief Priest Sitdng Bull. 

It has long since been proved by the Sioux war- 
riors themselves tiiat Rain-iii-the-Face, was not on 
the field of battle that day but miles away in 
charge of the pony herd. About Sitting Bull's 
hand in the affair he had expressed himself again 
thrice over as interpreted from the Sioux in the 
followino words.: 



21 P^KONTIER AND IndIAN Lll'E. 

"They say to you I murdered Custer. I say to 
you it is a lie. I am not a war chief. I was not 
fighting in the battle that day. His eyes were 
blinded that he could not see. He was a fool and 
rode to his death. He made the fight — not I. 
Who ever tells you I killed Custer is a liar." 

Sitting Bull's defense was but justice to himself. 
He was the hunted — not the hunter. General 
Custer rode down on the Indian village on Little 
Big Horn river, with a ciphered scroll floating high 
above his feathery-winged guidons. It has bla- 
zoned over many fields of mortal combat between 
armies of angry men in die deaa past, and will 
again appear; — "fiiey rH.\T jakk iiiE sword 

SHALE PERKSH WITH THE SWORD," and Custer's 

sword was his life. 

xA.ny intelligent Yanktonay, Santee. Minnecunju, 
Brule, Blackfoot or other Sioux warriors who par- 
ticipated in the fight against the Seventh Cavalry 
Battalions on the 25th day of June, 1876, will tell 
you it was difficult to tell just whn killed Cieneral 
Custer. They believe he was the last to fall among 
the group with whom he was found; that the last 
leaden messengers bearin®' swift death hurled 
upon this same group of falling and dying sol- 
diers, — were belched tbrth from Winchesters held 
in the hands of Inkpaduta's sons. 




Sitting Bull, 

The Noted Siorx Ciiiee .anj) .AIkdici.ve Ma: 



A FATED WAR PARTY. 

WHEN Lewis and Clark, and party of explor- 
ers ascended the Missouri river in 1804, 
they encamped for a few days near where the city 
of Council Bluffs, now stands. While at this en- 
campment they diligently inquired of the names 
of the neighboring- Indian nations or tribes, and of 
their numbers, condition and customs, more espe- 
cially those wild ones west of the Missouri, and 
bordering along the river Platte. Their descrip- 
tion and observations of many of these rovers, 
of even that comparatively late day, show that in 
the past as at present, extermination or absorbtion 
of the Amc^rican aboriginal nations goes gradually 
on. 

Aniong other tribes described in Lewis and 
Clark's Journal, was the Staitans or Flyers, a band 
at the time numbering not more tlian one hundred 
men. A i'ew years after that date even these were 
exterminated, but just what tribe became execu- 
tioners has never Ijeen clearly established, though 
iheir rubbing out without much doubt happened 
along the banks of Lodge Pole creek, a small 
stream putting into the Platte river, near the forks. 
Here a large number of human bones were found 
some little time after the known disappearance of 
the Flyers from off tht- face of the plains. 



-D 



Frontier and Indian Life. 



Theses Staitaiis wvsc. the; most warlike and fero- 
cious of all the American Indians of whom we 
ha\'c any record. They were* the best mounted 
as well as the best horseman of th(' plains, and 
moved with the buffalo in their mig^rations ; laying 
no claim to territory where buffalo were not found 
and all country within the immediate range of the 
movdng herds. . Ihey were in truth, the: red Ish- 
maelites of the interior American wilderness. — 
Their hands were against every peojjle not of 
their ow^n, and every tribe on the range regarded 
the defiant Staitans as an uncompromising and in- 
veterate foe. 

The Staitan Indian never yielded in battle To 
meet an enemy was to fight him, to conc^uer him, 
or to die. Ihey never spared an enemy on ac- 
count of age or sex. Their women rode in the 
ranks at every battle, and fought as her mate 
fought and was as merciless and unsparing as he. 

To a people whose chosen virtues are courage 
and endurance, these bold Staitans were at once 
the fear and the wonder. Before their extermina- 
tion even, certain societies or w-ar bands within the 
government of several of the Indian tribes of the 
west organized in partial imitation of the fighting 
codes of these Flyers ot the open pLains. lo have 
the unwavering courage of a Staitan was the loft- 
iest ambition a warrior could aspire to, and to be 
likened unto one, the highest complimcnu his can- 
ity could reach out for. 



A Fated Wak Party. 26 

Aroum) and about the country where the Riviere 
Du Lac empties its waters into the Mouse river, 
there formerly resided and claimed the soil, the 
"Band of Canoes" one of the three bands of the 
South Assinaboine. This Band of Canoes, while 
having nomadic habits in summer days, usually 
passed the greater part of the winter season in 
some timbered belt along this river of the lakes. 

Here the pickeral and other fish swim up from 
out of Lake Winnepeg in vast shoals, and by cut- 
ting holes through the ice a plentiful supply could 
be obtained by them, and with the herds of deer, 
antelope and buffalo that formerly roamed there, 
a food supply of unceasing plenty was the happy 
fortunes of these Band of Canoes. 

While these Indians were not particularly of a 
warlike nature, yet like most tribes, they kept a 
few war parties occasionally out on the skirmish 
line. To the north they had a sometime enemy in 
the Cree, while to the south they occasionally ex- 
changed words and war raids with the Gros Ven- 
tre.s and the Mandans Like some of the tribes on 
the plains south of them, this Band of Canoes had 
exclusive groups or "clubs" with separate totems 
for adoration en' worship. 

I\ midwinter, 1S22, Tall Bull, a Band of Canoe 
war chiei, who with his followers had chosen the 
valorous Staitans as the objects of imitation, left 
his comfortable quarters on the Mouse river, at 
the head of twent)'-two braves, and travelled south- 



27 FroMIKR AM) L\J)IA_N LlFK. 

west over the high dividing ridges between that 
stream and the headwaters of the Upper or Little 
Knife river. While here floundering through the 
snow, one of th(t warriors accidentl)' broke his 
scalping knife. 

Now, the breaking ot a knite blade is as much 
of a sign of ill-omen, and impending disaster to the 
wild Indian as was the breaking of a sword blade 
or a lance point to the sturdy knight errant in 
the days of the Cid, Aben Hassen or El Chico, in 
the Gothic and Moorish contests of mountainous 
Spain. 

What was to be done ? Fhe unchang"eable 
oath of a Staitan was never turn to the rioht or 
left on a war raid. Never turn back without hrst 
striking- the enemy, and never call a halt while 
the prospect was almost sure for meeting them 
in the direct line of their pathway. 

A parry was attempted with Fate. The un- 
lucky knife breaker was sent home in disgrace, 
and facing a blinding snow storm, the balance con- 
tinued forward. 

That winter is on record as one of the coldest 
ever experienced in the Upper Missouri country, 
so say the oldest of its native rt?d inhabitants. 

During one ot the worst ot the many January 
storms thereat recorded, the buflalo herds left the 
high prairie, and sought shelter among the broken 
hills along the rivt;r, and ext-n crowded upon die 
bottom lands and among the timbered Lends. In 
this way thc-y l;ecame an t'asy prey to Indian hunt- 



A Fated War Party. 28 

ers and were slaughtered unmercifully by them. 

Near the Counted Woods a few miles below 
Lake Mandan. a large hunting party of Gros Ven- 
tres and Mandans, while engaged in making a sur- 
round for killing the helpless brutes, saw strange 
objects coming down from the high prairies. They 
were obscured from view at times by drifting snow 
but on nearer approach proved to be Indians. 

They were straggling along on foot and seemed 
bewildered and lost. They were coming too, like 
the animals, for the shelter of the bottom lands. 
They dragged along in apparent helplessness, 
through the snow; their arms hanging stiffly by 
their sides. The intense cold, seemingly made 
them oblivious to everything around them. 

In the meantime the Mandan and Gros Ventre 
hunters had suspended the buffalo chase and were 
preparing to surround the intrusive newcomers 
whom on approaching, had refused to signal the 
sign of the friend. 

Seeing escape impossible, even if desired, and 
their benumbed and helpless condition a bar to 
resistance ii they would, the apparent leader of 
the strangers, spoke out in clear tones in the As- 
siniboine coiigue : "Follow me!" and pushed on 
forward. 

They walked ouc upon die frozen ice of the 
Missouri, pressed on all sides by their bantering 
and taunting foes, who though many times their 
numbers, had as yet faikid to close upon their 
silent, half famished and half-frozen prey. 



29 Frontier and Indian Life. 

In their front was an air hole throug^h the ice, 
that owing- to the swift circling current of the 
water, had withstood the severest tests of the cold 
and remained open. 

With a defiant tread the hunted leader of the 
strangers walked up and into the circling waters, 
and without a struggle disappeared. In turn, and 
in single file — like the buftalo to his drink, — each 
followed his chieftain's fatal tracks, and in quick 
succession made the plunge that took them for- 
ever from the reach of their baffled and surprised 
enemies. 

Thus perished Tall Bull and all of his fated war 
party of the South Assinaboine Band of Can- 
oes and last of the imitators of the Staitan or Ply- 
ing Indians. 










To THE Land of Deseret. 



BUMMSR DAN. 

A FEW miles north of Omaha, Nebraska, on 
the river road, there nestles on a plain near 
a low sloping bluff, the pretty little hamlet of Flor- 
ence. It had been a business town ot some fame 
before the former city was thought of. It was 
here on the flats surrounding the village that many 
hundreds of the Latter Day Saints or Mormons 
rested and recruited after their expulsion from 
their temple at Nauvoo, by Illinois milida in 1846, 
before making final ready for their long journey 
across the Great Plains and over the Rocky range 
to their future homes in the "Land of Deseret." 

During the early days of the construction of 
the Union Facilic railroad, the ordinary quiet of 
the little village was sometimes rudely disturbed 
by passing gangs of raftsmen and tie cutters in 
the railroads employ, who were in permanent 
cam.p in the forests around the neighboring village 
of Rockport. 

On one occasion during the early summer of 
1866, the writer belated, had occasion to put up 
one evening at die jniblic slopping place in the 
village. Sonu'linie during the night I was awak- 
ened by loud cries and confused sounds coming 
from the direction of a camp of lumberman near 



31 Frontier and Indian Life. 

by who had also occasion to pass the night at 
Florence. By the light of the new moon's pale 
and unsteady beams, a crowd of men were 
seen beating and kicking by turns, an apparently 
friendless man lying upon the ground in the 
centre of the maddened throng. He was altern- 
ately groaning in pain or shrieking with fright and 
calling aloud for mercy. The injured man was 
finally rescued by the village constable and taken 
out of harm's way. He had been accused of steal- 
ing a blanket from one of the party to cover his 
almost naked body from the crisp night air. He 
was moneyless and friendless — a conjunction of 
circumstances by no means unusual to a wander- 
ing tramp on the public highway. 

The whole party came before the town justice 
next morning, and a curiosity born of the spectral 
scene of the previous night prompted my atten- 
dance. In the disfigured and swollen-faced form 
setting in the prisoner's dock before me, I was 
surprised to see the familiar features of Bummer 
Dan whom I had often seen on the streets of 
Denver and other Rocky Mountain towns. The 
examination proved my surmise correc;. and on 
the justice being informed who his prisoner was, 
he discharged him with the injunction to move on 
his way. 

Bummer Dan ! What strange thoughts that 
homely name conjures up in memory's train ! Oh, 
weary and unfortunate wanderer, how many a 



BuMMEk Dan. * 32 

kick — how man)- a cuff put upon you — your 
l^lotched countenance and scarred body bear wit- 
ness ! What curs(;s have been heaped after you 
and around you old man, as you trudged slowly 
along life's pathway — a route to you ever dark 
and ever dreary ! Oh, Goddess Fortuna what 
pranks ! Are the Fates ever proclaiming : "What 
is to be, will be ? " 

In the year 1858, gold was disqoyel-ed in paying 
(pianlities near Pike's Peak, Colorado, and from 
,the far east and south, came swarms of adventur- 
ers to meet on common ground within the shad- 
ows of that great snow capped dome, the bronzed 
gold hunters from California and other Pacific 
ranges. 

From these defiles of the mountains of Colo- 
rado, roving parties branched out and followed the 
windings of the deep canons or surmounted the 
barriers of the rocky walls, from the fiery summits 
of Popocateptl on the .south, to the frozen regions 
of the arctic. 

Onti of these determined and reckless prospect- 
ing parties, after hardships that tested their pow- 
ers of endurance to the uttermost tension, found 
themselves inthe early summer of 1862, explor- 
ing the country about the headwaters of the Mis- 
souri and Yellowstone rivers, when a lucky find 
placed them in possession of mines near the fa- 
mous V'irginia gulch, one of the solid stones in 
Montana's after prosperity. 



^^ Froniikk AM) Indian Like. 

With this party of prospectors was a vigorous, 
able bodied and generous hearted Irishman, who 
had been the Hfe of his party during its sorest 
trials. He was known by name as Daniel McMa- 
hon, and at their first streaks of success he staked 
down a good claim which proved a veritable home- 
stake, as he soon after found a ready purchaser 
who allowed him therefor, eighty thousand dollars 
in good honest gold. 

"Now, Daniel McMahon," some invisible spirit 

seemed to whisper softly to him in his moments of 

ease and quiet, "your fortune has came to you at 

last and your weary labors are over. Away, then. 

over the great ocean to the green Island of your 

childhood. Your old father and your mother there 

are ever praying and hoping for the return of 

their wandering son. They are old and careworn 

now. and the sight of your ruddy face and manly 

form would give them good cheer. And there is 

another over there, who has almost counted the 

hours and days in the long dreary years of your 

absence: but whose heart is ever true to you— 

ever lingers in realms of fadeless hope— as on 

that day you gave her your last farewell. Away, 

Daniel McMahon. away. 

A successful mining camp is generally a noisy 
one. Miners coming in, and miners going out. 
like an active swarm of bees in a season ot flow- 
ers. This mining camp near Virginia gulch was 
no exception. 



BuM.viEk Dan. 34 

After the sale of his mine, Uaniel McMahon 
bustled around among his comrades and friends, 
until he had provided himself with a traveling out- 
fit to hie himself below Boseman's ferry, where he 
hoped to overtake a party of miners encamped 
there, and who were preparing to return by flat- 
boat down the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers, 
on their passage to the States. 

Two other miners — like himself being home- 
ward bound, would accompany him on his pro- 
posed trip. After a leave taking and many "wish 
* you a safe journey" from their friends at Virginia, 
the three peacefully and quietly wended their way 
down the valley and out of the sight of the camps. 

A day later, and still another party left the gulch 
for the same destination, and on the same trail. — • 
At a lonely-looking point on the mountains below 
Boseman's, this last party came upon a man lying 
near the roadway, unconscious and breathing in 
labored moans. 

Upon examination, the wounded man proved to 
be McMahon. He had evidently been robbed by 
his two late companions of all his wealth, and with 
his head battered out of shape by bludgeon left 
for dead, and better — far better for hiin — that 
death had spread around him its dark mantle and 
closed the egress of his earthly future. 

But the Fates were not done with him yet.-— 
There he lay — )'esterday the wealthy and popular 
miner ; to-day, uncounscious, — a blank ; and to- 
morrow — Bummer Dan. 



THK 3CALPLSSS WARRIOR AND DAUGHTER. 

THERE is an old custom amont^ the wild trih(>s 
of the northern plains, that when a warrior 
is struck down in battle by the enemy, scalped and 
yet survive, he must never allow his kindred or 
members of his tribe see his face agam. 

A coward in battle may lose cast for a time, his 
seat in the council house may become vacant (^r 
be filled by another — his painted face and form no 
lontJ^er seen at the war dance — or in extreme cases 
he may be forced to don a woman's drt;ss ; but 
with these exceptions his home life goes smoothly 
and joyfully on. 

But a warrior though brave as an Achilles or as 
reckless as an Ajax in bloody combat, who falls in 
the front of the fighting line and his reeking for- 
lock torn from his head in the tumult, and yet 
arise from the ground a living man, — he must for- 
ever wander, like the coyote or the wolf, among 
fastnesses of the mountain defiles or the hiding 
places of the desert, to shun and be shunned by 
the humans of the earth. Woe, woe then, to the 
scalpless brave. 

One summer's day about the year 1845, — so the 
Aricarees say — an outpost of six of thai tribe while 
on duty near their village at old b'ort Clark, were 
attacked by a war party of northern .Sioux, and 



The ScALi'LESs Warrior and Daughter. 36 

most of the guards were struck down, scalped and 
mutilated. 

The surviving members of the band fled to 
their home, spread the alarm, and in company of a 
wailing concourse of friends returned to care for 

the dead. 

Their astonishment was great on coming to the 
ground where they had witnessed the killing, scalp- 
fng and mutilation of a comrade, nothing but clots 
of^'blood, and parts of his hands and leet lying 
dismembered there. The body proper could not 

be found. 

As the place was dangerous from prowling 
bands of their enemies, the Aricaree mourners, 
afier making such disposition of the dead as their 
custom allowed, hastened back to the main village 
and told their story. The medicine men when 
appealed to for answer, gave only a gloomy shake 

of the head. 

It was about three years after the events here 
related, that a camp of South Assinaboines came to 
the Mandan, Gros Ventres and Aricaree villages on 
a mission of peace. They complained that .some 
of their people were being mysteriously mur- 
dered in unlooked for places ; that no sign of an 
enemy could be seen, save a track that seemed 
of neither man or beast. 

The Aricarees, now, also called to mind that 
strange and unaccountable tracks had been seen 
around their own village, which invarably led 
out upon the open plain. These tracks were seen 



^^-^ Fkontikr AM) Indian Likk. 

upon the early morning dew and disappeared with 
the rising sun. 

All of these mysteries were in a manner ex- 
plained sometime later by an adventurous hunting 
party of Aricarees, who in beating up the game in 
one of the most inaccessible districts in the Little 
Missouri bad lands, came unexpectedly upon an 
opening to a strange looking den, in which were 
scattered about the bones of horses, elk, deer, 
antelope and wolves in great heaps, as well as 
some bones that seemed of the human kind. 

And what would seem more strange to the now 
terrified discoverers, was the strange imprints on 
the soft gumbo soil that seemed very like those 
that they had seen around their own village. The 
party concluded that they were at the cave home 
of some scalpless warrior, and with sudden fear 
taking possession of them, they hastily lied to 
their homes to relate a wondrous story. 

As time passed the mysterious tracks around the 
Aricaree village continued. They were ofdmes 
traced within the inclosure, even up to the lodge 
of the widow of the slain picket, Vvhose body had 
so unaccountably disappeared at the outpost near 
b'ort Clark, many yt-ars before. 

'Ihis woman had remained unmarri(;d, since that 
disastrous day when her husband passed into 
the gauzy and indehnile by that unsatisfying 
and speculative word, — missing. She had stayed 
at the home of her parents, caring tor her child, 
ihe daui'-liLer of the uiifortuiiai«' brave. 



Thk ScAi.i'LKss Warrior and Dauchter. 38 

One night, this child, then nearly seven years 
of age, was fretting and crying as other children 
are wont to do, when the impatient mother cried 
out churlishly, — as interpreted from her native 
tongue : 

"i will throw you out of the door for your bug- 
gaboo father to catch !" An expressive significa- 
tion from the hauntt-d woman. 

The little girl not heeding, she was fiung out of 
the doorway by the irate mother, and after a shrill 
and piercing shriek, all became silent in the dark- 
ness, save the usual baying of dogs, or the low 
sounds of muffled drums in adjoining lodges. 

The mother, after her Hash of anger was over, 
called aloud to her child to come inside, but neither 
child nor answer came to her summons. She then 
went outside calling aloud through the darkness; 
and as before, no answering voice. 

Becoming now thoroughly aroused the woman 
went from one lodge to another, making eager in- 
cpiiries about the whereabouts of her daughter, 
but was uniformly answered by a shake of the 
head and the negative word "cok-kee." 

She searched high and low. near and far, but 
scearched in vain. 

Days passed, months pas.sed. and years went 
slowly on. but the thoroughly repentant mother 
never saw her dear child again. 

liiK Cree Indians of Lake Winnepeg, Province 
of Manitoba, during years of scarcity, in days past. 



39 Frontier and Indian Life. 

went hunting the buffalo in the country of the 
South Assinaboines, on or about the headwaters 
of Mouse river. In one of these wandering jour- 
neys by a band of this tribe about the year 1855, 
they became snow bound on Riviere Du Lac, a 
tributary stream of the Mouse. 

On a bitter cold and stormy day when snow 
was drifLing in wild Hurries about the sheltered 
camp, two mounted persons suddenly appeared 
within the line, that the custom of these wild red 
plainsmen, binds inmates to a hospitable recep- 
tion of strangers or self-invited guests, coming 
from what tribe they may. 

One of these visitors seemed a huge wolf 
mounted on horseback. The figure was encased 
from head to heel in the shagg)' coat of the v\ hite 
buffalo wolf; the fiercest animal of its kind on the 
plains. The face of this fright had a wolfs mask, 
and ears stood erect, as from a wolf's head. 

The other figure was that of an Indian maid of 
matchless beauty both in face and form. She was 
wrapped in a mantle of the prime silk otter, with 
a whitened frock from the tanned skins of the ante- 
lope, moccasins of a winter pattern from the hide of 
the buffalo; and drawn around her loosely a tme lig- 
ured robe; and wiih a gaudy head dress com- 
pleted her artistic wardrobe. Her fiery and gail)' 
comparisoned steed chafed discontentedly with his 
taut rawhide bit. ' Such were the strangers that 
greeted the wondering Crees. 

"I am a child of the Aricarees !" said the maid 



The ScALri.Ess Warrior and Daughter. 40 

as she quickly disPxiOLinlcd and archly extended a 
hand to the advancing Cree chief. 

"Yes," replied the red gallant, "none but the 
Aricaree have such handsome women." 

Need the reader be told that these visitors in the 
Cree camp, were none other than the cave dweller 
of the Little Missouri bad lands, and his daughter 
— Lhe missing child of the Aricaree village. 

For several long and lonesome years, they had 
lived on the trackless plain or among the dreary 
vvasLes of the bad lands. How the man existed 
in the earlier and hermit part of his career, without 
other aid than the merest stumps of feet and hands, 
or how he had bandaged and stopped the blood 
How without assistance, is one of those unraveled 
mysteries of wilderness life, that we will pass 
on to the debatalle and conjectural. 

The father and daughter received a warm wel- 
come — v.ere feasted and cared for as the primitive 
Indian always do to their hungry and tired stranger 
guests. ihe girl's gayety and beauty soon won 
her admirers among the susceptible youths, and 
later on a husband from among the hunters of the 
tribe, v.hile the Scalpless Warrior, always dressed 
in his frighlfiil wolf mask, remained around among 
these hospitable people until the summer days 
came around again, when one morning the early 
dew marked a trail on the outward way, and never 
one amono- die Cree hosts have seen its re- 
turn — for the strange wolf-man had disappeared 
forever. 



41 Frontier and Indian Life. 

Ocean Man was a petty Cree chief. He was 
one of the few Indians of that tribe of the far in- 
terior who had ever gazed upon the waters of the 
wide ocean. From some high point where the 
waters of Hudson's Bay pour out into the mighty 
deep, he had beheld the Atlantic's vast expanse, 
and its foamy billows dash themselves on the 
dripping rocks about him. Hence his name. 

In September, 1882, this chief, with eight men 
and their several families of woman and children, 
left their homes on the Saskatchewan river, south- 
ward for the plains of North Dakota, to hunt the 
last band of wild buffalo that was seen or ever 
will be seen along;- the grass covered vales of the 
Riviere du Lac. 

The little party came in forced marches to the 
plains around White Buffalo lake, without scarcely 
a halt other than the reo-ular nicrht rests. But now 
at this place so near their journey's end, and with- 
in good range of game, they decided to take a few 
days of ease. 

At sundown on the day after encamping, while 
the hunters were gathering in their ponies for the 
the night, some ot them espied objects 'm the dis- 
tance, hut owing to the heated and disturbed at- 
mosphere, seemed like a mass ol buffalo, and a 
shout of joy passed from one another at the sight, 
for now feasts of plenty would reign the hour. — 
Bui, see, the\' come closer now ! How sudden 
the transitions ot thought ! How sirangelv the 
heart beats now to these poor people, who saw 



Thk ScAi.i'i.Kss Warrior and Daughter. 42 

the g-limmer of bright sunshine fade, and death's 
terrible pall throwing' out its inky shades around 
them. The moving objects are plainly discerned 
now I Not buffalo, but a large body of horsemen 
moving down on them with the swiftness of the 
wind. 

Now, Cree husbands and fathers be firm ! — 
Nerve your hearts for duty and for danger as 
never before been tried. Around you and about 
you are your all. Poor, frightened Cree mothers 
and helpless little ones, go hide yourselves quick, 
and hide yourselves well. The yelling demons 
bearing down upon you. are a war party of Gros 
Ventres, Mandans and x\ricarees — they have 
come to avenge a fallen comrade, and if victorious 
will kill you all. 

Swift circling horsemen — deafening yells and 
rattling reports from their Winchester rifles — 
desultory replies coming from muzzle loaders in 
the hands of the terrified Crees from behind their 
cart beds, feeble from the first but soon ceasing 
altogether, and then the excited horsemen dis- 
mount to hack up the wounded and living; muti- 
late and scalp the dead. 

Among the victims was a dying woman, with two 
dead children clasped tightly to her breast. Her 
last mute appeal — the sign of the Aricaree, had 
been unheeded or unanswered, and with the last 
gas[) of tills dying mother — by war's strange and 
tragic twists — the blood line of the Scalpless 
Warrior was ended. 



THE GREAT PLAINS IN 1364 AND 1863. 

FOR many years previous to the summer o 
1864, the wild Indian inhabitants of the grea 
central plains, had — barring some sporadic ex 
ceptions — refrained from committing any seriou; 
depredations upon their white neighbors of th( 
eastern frontier or the emigrants and freighter.' 
passing through their territory along the three 
great highways between the Missouri river anc 
the Rocky mountains. This, too, with a knowlegc 
that in the three preceding years, a bloody anc 
devastating war was raging between the States 

The outbreak of the Santee Sioux in Minne 
sota, in 1862, had made no visible impression foi 
the worse on the several Indian nations, not ever 
to the southwestern bands of the Sioux whc 
roamed along the Big Horn, Niobrara and Platte 
river country. 

As late as the latter part of July, 1864, while 
on the overland journey referred to in the open 
ing sketch, large bands of the Oi^allalla and uppei 
Brule Sioux, and some Cjheyennes were camping 
quietly along the Platte river trail, between PTe- 
mont's Orchard and O'rallons Bluffs, while some 
of their chiefs were away holding conferences with 
Colorado's governor and some miiiiary olhcers at 
Denver, endeavoring to allay the threatened war 
cloud caused by a difficulty between some emi- 



The Great Peains tn 1864 ani> 1865. 44 

orants in the early spring in which the mihtary al- 
so look a share. In the fight that followed the 
soldiers were repulsed with a loss of several killed 
and wounded. The Cheyennes lost their leader 
and some others. 

In the last week in July a raid was made by a 
small land of Indians along the Little Blue river 
in southeastern Nebraska. Several settlers were 
killed and two women carried into captivity. The 
raiders were Cheyennes. Near about the same 
time and probably by the same war party, an em- 
igrant party consisting of eleven persons were 
killed seven miles west of Fort Kearney at the 
Plumb creek crossing on the Platte river trail. — 
An attack was made on the overland stage at 
O' Fallon's Bluffs and some depredations were 
committed on the stock of freighters along the 
two overland trails on the Arkansas and Smoky 
Hill routes. 

Basetts division of Majors' train, — to which the 
writer was assigned — moved along slowly, and all 
were governed by a discipline of military exact- 
ness ; placing out trusty night guards at each 
camping place to avoid surprise and loss of stock 
by the irresponsible stagglers and outlaws from 
Indian camps. At Fremont's Orchard, we passed 
through a large camp of Sioux and Cheyennes. 
Here, at his best, the untamed North American 
Indian could be seen. He appeared the haughty 
savage with a dignified reserve, and acted to a 
finish its portrayal. He passed our questioning 



45 iMvOXfli'-.k AM' Imi.-.X LlFK. 

with unmoved silence and our proffered taniiliarity 
with scorn. 

While trailing through the sands over O' Fallon's 
Bluffs, we came upon the body of a man just 
killed. He v/as dressed in an Indiandike costume 
and other than the loss of his scalp, and several 
arrows shot in his breast, suffered no mutilation. 
At the American ranch we remained encamped 
two days, and hear learned from this undaunted 
ranchman of the murder of the Hunga'e family 
at ihe Beaver creek cut-off, and two days later 
passed their four newly dug graves. 

We reached Denver about the middle of August 
and thence passed up Cherry creek for the Arkan- 
sas. The valley along the creek was deserted by 
its inhabitants, and catde herds badly scattered. 
A man and boy had been found murdered, appar- 
ently by Indians. This was about ihe-.isum total 
of casualties when a proclamation from- the Gov- 
ernor of Colorado was received at die principal 
Indian camps within the boundaries of that Ter- 
ritory. The proclamation was dated June icth. 
The Governor ordered all friendly disposed In- 
dians within the Territorial limjt.s.tq repair forth- 
with to the military post of Fort d:-aramie on 
the north, or to Fort Lyons on the south. This 
order would affect the Ogallalla Sioux, and a part 
of norlhern' Cheyennes and^ .Arapahoes on the 
north, while those affected on the southe-rn border 
would be the. lov/er bands of the Cheyennes, 
Arapahoes and the Kiowas. The mountain Uies 
were considered friendly and were not included in 
the proclamation. 



Thf. Great Plains in 1864 and 1865. 46 

The Cheyenne Indians belong to the great Al- 
gonquin family, and when first known, to the 
whi es lived on the Sheyenne river, a branch of 
the Red Red River of the North. They are termed 
in Indian sign language "Cut Wrists" from that 
form of mutilation which they practice on their 
dead enemies. They are also sometimes called 
ihe Dog Eaters from their known fondness for the 
fiesh'df !his animal, which they serve up at all cer- 
t rnon:al feasts. On account of incessant wars with 
.'"an ee Sioux, As-nnaboines and Crees, the Chey- 
ennes moved south by what is now known as the 
■ it'le Cheyenne riyer where they encamped for a 
fevv' years, in 1804, when Lewis and Clark ascend- 
ed die Missouri, they • were living on the Big 
Cheyenne, near the Black Hills. In 1832 George 
Ca'lin found them in about the same place; though 
hal; traveler speaks of them as sending war parties, 
on hos'dle foreys as far south as the Mexican bor- 
der-. While in the Black Hills they were at 
V, ar against various Sioux bands, and also the 
• Mandans, and .sometimes against the Aricarees. 

About these limes owing to the aggessiveness of 
the Crows north of them, the Cheyennes formed 
alliance with the Ara.pahoes, an offshoot of the 
Caddoes of the Texas plains. These Arapahoes 
were old re.sidents of the North Platte country, 
and t"Wo or thr(^e generations had passed since they 
:;eparated from .he parent stock on Brazos river. 

After the union of the Cheyenne and Arapa- 
hoe tribe they continued their depredations, to 



47 l^^ko.x i-ii.R AM) Indian Likk. 

some extent, ag^ainst the settlements of New Mex- 
ico; and some trouble growing; out of these 
plundering expeditions in their own camps, a 
general rumpus took place. A part of the Chey- 
ennes and a part of the Arapahoes moving south- 
ward and thencforward became know n as the south- 
ern bands. They occupied the country between 
the South Platte and the Arkansas rivers. Those 
who remained north continued to occupy the coun- 
try between the Platte river forks and along the 
mountain foothills. In 1851, the government made 
a general treaty with these tribes who as mutual 
sharers of the country claimed common ground 
for both tribal divisions, all lands between Fort 
Laramie on the north, to the old Santa Pee cross- 
ing- of the Arkansas river, on the south. 

The discovery of gold around Pike's Peak in 
1858. and the occupation of the country by a large 
number of prospecters and adventurers made it 
necessary for the Government to again make a 
treaty with the Cheyennes and Arapahoes. Ac- 
cordingly in May, 1861, a conference was held at 
Fort Wise by a commission appointed for the pur- 
pose and some of the principal chiefs of these 
two tribes in which they aggreed to surren- 
der certain parts of their territory along the foot- 
hills and and with a vague wording of the articles 
permission was granted by the Indians for the 
building of roads through any part of their lands. 

When the tt^ms of the treaty was made known 
to the Indians as a body they vigoroL.*^ly protested 



The Great Plains tn 1864 and 1865. 48 

and the chiefs making- the treaty were terribly 
scored and ordered to undo the work that their ig- 
norance had done, especially as to the making of 
numerous roads through their country. 

Such were the grievences of the Cheyennes, 
when Governor Evens' proclamation reached their 
main camps. The principal part of the Chey- 
ennes were for obeying without question, though 
a turbulent minority led by some ambitious young 
men were for ignoring or defying the Governor's 
order. Notwithstanding numerous messengers 
and messages passed between the Governor and 
the Indians it was noL until September that a con- 
ferance could be arrang-ed, which was held in Den- 
ver, between the Governor and Col. Chivington 
the distric- comnn. ider 0.1 the one side, and some 
of the principal Cheyenne and Arapahoe chiefs on 
the other. 

The two leading chiefs of the Cheyennes were 
two brothers White Antelope and Black Kettle, 
both brainy and far-seeing men, who had talked 
down the turbulent and restless spirits among 
their own people, and were earnestly desirous of 
warding off certain ruin and destruction of their 
trib(; by truce with the Government. The Indians 
had been, moving too slow to suit the Governor, 
and he was loth to give audience. He reproached 
the chiefs for their tardiness in complying with 
the terms of his proclamation, and plainly told 
them he now doubted his ability to protect them 
from the soldiers. The following was a part of 



49 Froxiter AM) Indian Lire. 

the conversation between the Governor, Colonel 
Chivington, and the Indians at this council relatint^ 
to "first blood" — the beginning- of the war : 

Gov. Evans. — "Who took the stock from Fre- 
mont's Orchard and had the first fight with the sol- 
diers this spring north of there." 

White Antelope. — "Before answering this (|ues- 
tion I would like to know that this was the l)0- 
ginning of the war and I would like to know 
what it was for. A soldier fired first." 

Gov. E. "The Indians had stolen about 40 horses; 
the soldiers went to recover them and the Indians 
fired o volley into their ranks." 

White Antelope. "That is all a mistake; they 
were coming down the Bijou Basin and found ono 
horse and one mule. They returned one horse be- 
fore they got to Gerry's, to a man, then went to the 
ranch expecting to turn the other over to some one 
there. Then they heard that the soldiers and In- 
dians were fighting some where down Platte river, 
then they took fright and fled." 

Gov. E. "Who were the Indians that had the 
fight?" 

White Antelope. "They were headed by Fool 
Badger's son, a young man, one of the greatest of 
the Cheyenne warriors; who was wounded, though 
still alive, will die." 

The conned lasted several hours and at its con- 
clusion Black Kettle and White Antelope agreed 
to bring m their respective camps under the pro- 
tection of Fort Lyon, and done so. They w^ere 
also accompanied by Left Hand and his band of 
Arapahoes. 

On the 20th of November our train re-crossed 



The Great Plains tn 1864 and 1865. 50 

the Arkansas at Pueblo, having on our return 
from Port Union, New Mexico, loaded with 
corn at Hicklin's on the Greenhorn, for Denver, 
and consequently moved slowly. On the 21st, 
while rolling- along the P^ountain Butelle, we were 
overtaken by a snow storm and at the Garden of 
the Gods, near the present site of Colorado 
Springs, we made camp for several days. About 
the I St of December, while preparing to move for- 
ward we were overtaken by some of the 3rd Col- 
orado regiment and from them we learned the per- 
ticulars of one of the most atrocious acts ever 
committed by men wearing the uniform of the 
United States Army, viz: the annihilation of White 
Antelope and his band of Cheyennes after having 
obeyed Governor Evans proclamation and placed 
themselves under protection of the military au- 
thorities at Fort Lyons. The soldiers account 
given at that time and afterward corroberated by 
their companions in arms, and whose statements 
have never been changed materially, in the light 
of facts of subsequent history. 

About the middle of November, Col. John M. 
Chivington, an ex-minister of the Gospel then 
commanding the district of Colorado, was mass- 
ing and outfiting a body of soldiers for a purpose 
that he kept to himself, though outwardly he was 
tacitly following the line of orders issued by Gen. 
Curtis the department commaner. The camp of 
rendesvous was on Bijou Basin, southeast or Den- 



., I P""R()N'riF,u AMI Indian Like. 

ver. The command as massed consisted ot the 
1st and 3rd regiments of Colorado cavah-y, a sec- 
tion of artillery and transportation wagons. The 
whole command numbered near one thousand 
men. The ist regiment were three years men, 
and had already seen considerable service under 
its colonel, Chivington, in New Mexico, against 
Sibley and his Texas rangers. The 3rd regiment 
a nondescript crowd of emergency, or ninety day 
men, many of whom had served in both Union 
and Confederate armies; others had been bush- 
whackers, bullwhackers and prospectors whose 
principal find had been hard luck. 

On the morning of the 23rd of November, this 
military command packed tents, saddled up and 
marched southwa.rd. The snow from the late 
storm lay deep upon the ground, though as che 
soldiers moved toward the Arkansas, it disap- 
peared. The nights were raw and cold and the 
ground damp and uncomfortable for tired and 
weary men. A night of unrest made the succeed- 
ing day seem lifeless and time passed cheerless 
enousfh to Chivinp;ion's soldiers, until the evenino; 
of the 26th, when the distant breaks of the Ar- 
kansas river could be outlined; then a halt and a 
rest was made, the night to be spent in marching. 
About midnight the march was resumed. A 
chilly wind laden with dampness surged through 
the movino- mass and all seemed silent with their 
own thoughts. Chivington and his two guides rode 
in advance of the command. One of these guides, 




Young Crow Warrior and Wife. 



The Great Peains tn [864 anI) 1865. ^2 

was Jim Beckwith, once the noted mulatto war 
chief of the Mountain Crows of the Big Horn 
country, and a man with a strange record noted 
for its varying shifts, even in the unstable life of 
a rover of the border. It was Jim's general knowl- 
edge of the plains that the giant commander re- 
lied on that occasion. It was young John Smith, 
that the specific knowledge was expected on that 
night ride across the trackless plains. Smith was 
the half breed son of John Smith the well known 
Indian trader, who was at that very time among the 
Cheyennes. The young fellow had been beguiled, 
in some shape to accompany the expedition, and 
was moody and non-communicative by spells. 
Beckwith guided them without accident to within 
sight of the section of country they were looking 
for, and now Smith was to lead them to the object. 
The boy — for he was under twenty — rode by the 
side of the gruff commander in silence. He was 
communing in silent, morbid thought — a presenta- 
ment, perhaps — of the events of the coming day. 
Chivington knew that fear alone held his younger 
guide loyal, and Beckwith was asked to watch his 
movements closely. After a long spell of silence 
Smith spoke out in broken P^nglish : 

"Wolf he howl. Indian dog he hear wolf; he 
howl too. Indian he hear dog, listen and run off" 

Chivington took the butt of his revolver in his 
hand and turned ominously to the speaker, said : 

"Jack, I havn't had an Indian to eat for a long 
time. If you fool with me and don't lead to that 
camp, I'll have you for breakfast." 



53 I-^ROXTIER AND IXDTAX LiFK. 

An hour later a lio'ht streak in the eastern sky. 
warned the benumbed, stiffened men and jaded 
horses that another day was at hand. The objects, 
too, were near by that they had came for. The 
spreading' twihght revealed a large drove of ponies 
feeding quietly on die plain below them — and a lit- 
tle beyond, upward ot a hun.dred yellow Indian 
lodges — smokeless but not tenantless — the in- 
mates, even to the restless watchdogs were in the 
heavy sleep that precedes the dawn. 

It was in early October that 130 lodges tu ' 
the expected Cheyennes and Arapahoes undqr;I^giffc ; 
Hand, Black Kettle and White Antelope appjejaij^^t^ 
before the gates of F"ort Lyons and delivered up; 
their guns and equipmenls to Major Wynkoop the 
commandment of thr.t po;ft, as a token of .suritits-r-"' 
der. Their arms v^^as accepted ijy th'iu ohicer i^^i.d 
stored in the post arsenal, and a place pointed p,(it 
to them to encamp and put up their loages. 'b|iey 
were given some rations Irom the post commissary 
though their wants were not extravagant, having 
considerable dried buffalo meat in camp. They 
behaved themselves well and were not inclined to 
intrude or loiter around the post as is usual wiih 
many Indians on the frontier. Some time in No- 
vember a chanire was made in' the command of 
the post. Major Wynkoop was relieved by Major 
Anthony. The new commander was extremely 
dictatorial to his prisoners. He lessened their 
supjily of rations and finally cut them off altogether 



TiiK Grkat Plalxs tx 1864 An J) 1865. ^4 

and advised them on a ne\v location, where 
the)' mioht havt- a chance to subsist. This new- 
location was on Sand Creek — forty miles away. 
The place was near the buffalo range. A few of 
their pooreSjt,,guns was returned to them for the 
use of tht^^Tfitinters. 

There ^\\;^s,.po. reason given' bv. Major Anthony 
for this chano'e. . Col. Chiving Ton Had, for reasons 
ot his own. placed Major Anthony in charge of the 
fort. The Indians moved out to Sand creek and 
pu'u up their lo.dges. The chiefs felt uneasy. But 
in this camp were two or- three of the half breed 
rons of C(7l,J^ent, the noted fur trader, and John 
.Sniiih rd^.o; a trader on ihe plains, with over 
thiriy years e><per!ence with the Indians. These 
read over and over aoain to the Indians the fol- 
lowing extract from^Governor Evans proclamation: 
"All friendly Arapahoes and Cheyennes, belong- 
ing on the Arkansas river, will go to Major Colby, 
United Stales Indian Agent at F'ort Lyon, who 
will give them provisions and show them a place 
of safety." Trader Smith used his influence to 
calm their fears,, and curb their disappointment.— 
F^rom childhogd he had been taught that only the 
Mexican and the Indian were treacherous and cruel 
— only his ov>'n race, all magnanimity — all virtue. 

Sand creek was open and shelterless, the plains 
about, scarce of game, so that their feastings be- 
came few and their fasting spanned hours. The 
Indian child enured to the pangs of hunger, sat 
in its cheerle.ss nakedness around the smouldering 



55 F"R()NTIKk AND InDIAN LiFK. 

buffalo chip fires — uncomplaining little Spartans. 
that had been taught that silent suffering was a 
badge of fortitude. 

Daybreak on the 27th of November again. 
Daybreak in that Indian village on Sand creek. 
Raw and chilly and no one astir. What a comfort 
a warm robe on an early raw winter morning. A 
Cheyenne woman gets up to start a fire. She 
listens and is startled at a rumbling sound. "Buf- 
falo !" she exclaimed aloud. She threw up the 
teepe door. Black, indistinct forms are wedging 
down a ravine and ponies of the village go snort- 
ing up the hillside. "Buffalo!" yells the woman 
"Buffalo!" "White Soldiers !" exclaimed a dozen 
others, for now the snorting tramping and firing 
of guns had aroused the camp. The soldiers 
were amongst them. White Antelope rushed out 
unarmed with extended hands exclaiming in Eng- 
lish, "Stop! stop!" when he sank down filled with 
bullets. Smith the trader rushed between the ad- 
vancing soldiers and camp became muddled, ran 
back among the lodges and was unharmed. But 
all was confusion now. Shooting, screaming and 
crying of woman and children, yelling of soldiers. 
Black Kettle floated the stars and stripes and a 
white flag from the top of his lodge, but seeing no 
heed or respect was given; being unarmed escaped 
to the hills. Indians that had bows and arrows de- 
fended their lives as best as they could, and kept 
up a retreating fight along the creek bed. The 



TiiK CikKAT Plains tn 1864 and 1865. ^56 

demoniac giant ridino- among his men ordered 
no prisoners taken. Women, children, as well as 
unarmed men where shot down wherever over- 
taken. Little children, even to the sucking babes 
at their mother's breasts were shot like rabbits 
wherever found. A young Cheyenne girl, the af- 
fianced bride of George Bent, was hiding in a low 
swr.il when some soldiers came upon her. She 
arose and with extended hands and bared breasts 
rushed toward "the soldiers, thinking that her fem- 
inity and her beauty would save her; for she was 
a half breed, with the fair complexion of a Saxon 
Ivlond, and was reckoned the most beautiful young 
girl among the Cheyennes. She was met by a 
blow that crushed her skull, and her body after- 
ward muiilaled. 

One woman escaped from the slaughter and 
was crouching behind some low sage brush. A 
scared horse came galloping toward her hiding 
place; its owner m hot pursuit, but some distance 
away. Seeing she would be discovered, and per- 
haps thinking, by catching the animal and return- 
ing it to the owner, that she might save her life — 
.she caught it and held it until he came up; mean- 
time unloosening her blanket and baring her 
breast that he may know she was a woman. He 
took the bridle in one hand and with the other 
drew his revolver and shot her dead. 

An Indian woman and two children in the con- 
fusion crawled into a wagon unobserved. And 
only came forth from her hiding when the train 



57 - Frontier and Indian Likk. 

moved toward Lyons. The teamster, more mer- 
ciful than the rest allowed her to accompany the 
wa^on after being discovered. A squad of sol- 
diers coming up she was killed and her babes 
brained against the tires of the wagon wheel. — 
The Indian loss was about five hundred, principally 
woman and children. The soldiers lost seven 
killed and several wounded. 

Young Smith the enforced guide, horror struck 
at the scenes about him attempted to run away 
but was captured and brought back and placed 
under guard in his father's trading store. Col. 
Chivington was told that unless he gave orders to 
have him spared, that the boy would be killed. He 
replied : "I have given my orders and I have no 
more to give." It was taken as a taclict consent 
by the self appointed guards and they crowded 
around Smith as he set in his chair and some one 
shot him through the head. Over four hundred 
dead bodies lay around most of them women and 
childeren. The next day after the battle these 
bodies was disgustingly mutilated and scalps, ears 
fingers, and other parts of the body carried in the 
imitative, triumphal march of the savage or the pa- 
S^an. Garland crowned heroes of a nineteenth 
century episode — the massacre of the Indian 
prisoners and their families at Sand creek. 

The Rocky Mountain News, the Denver newspa- 
per, gave them a rousing welcome. It said: "The 
Colorado soldiers acquitted themselves well, and 
covered themselves with glory." 



ThI': Great Plains in 1864 and 1865. 58 

Many of the best men of Denver, however, 
denounced the Sand creek massacre as an atro- 
cious crime. Among others were two of the su- 
preme court judg-es, who had influence enough 
with President Lincoln to suspend the brutish 
Chivington from his command. Of course indig- 
nation meetings were held by his apologists, and 
on one occasion a war meeting was held to meet 
a threatened danger. The meeting was held in 
one of the theatres. The hall was packed. "Old 
Chiv" as the butcher was familiarly called was in 
his element. The crowd of roarers were his 
own. His self glorification was applauded. "I 
not only believe in killing every Injun," yelled 
the excited Colonel "but every one that sympa- 
thizes with ihem." 

With the surrender of the Cheyennes and Arap- 
aho*^s at Fort Lyons, in October, '64, peace and 
quiet reigned once more along the Arkansas; 
settlers and ranchmen returned to their homes, 
and overland travel and freighting was resumed. 
The ranchmen of the Platte river, though living in 
exposed and isolated places along that great over- 
land trail which ran parallel with that wide shal- 
low river for near five hundred miles, and who 
made their abode along the thoroughfare, and never 
considered their position perilous enough to aban- 
don at any time during the past summer. 

But the massacre of the hapless beings at Sand 
creek, warned them that a danger would now 



59 P'roniikr AM) Indian Likk. 

come upon them that would be madness to deny. 
First, most of the Indian woman who had been 
living with white husbands, quietly deserted 
them when an opportunity occurred for them to do 
so. A quietness prevailed over the Indian coun- 
try, but it was misinterpreted by Chivino-ton and 
his friends in Colorado, who saw in this non-activi- 
ty of the Indians, a fear brought on by what they 
termed the "chastisement" wrought on ihem by 
"Old Chiv." But they misconceived. It was the 
grusome calm that precedes the tornado's fury. 
About the middle of January 1865. war parties 
appeared by sections alonp Platte river and for a 
distance of four hundred miles every white man 
or woman was killed and every building but tv>'o 
were destroyed — these being French Canad-ans 
with Sioux wives. The village of Julesburg was 
destroyed and its 28 residents put to deadi. 

In March, I hired out as night guard for Fuck's 
freight train and proceeded down Platte river for 
Atchison, Kansas. P^rom the ruins of Julesburg, 
to jack Morrow's ranch near the present Fort 
McPherson, was one continuous string of dead, 
both white men and Indians, — dead stock, burned 
trains and ranches. Our up trail acqaintance of 
the American ranch was found widi 60 arrows in 
his body. The evidence told us that he had died 
game. At the Wisconsin ranch the inmates had 
been smothered, but inside of the ranch ruins lay 
two face-covered Cheyennes. One a middle aged 
warrior — the other a young brave dressed from 
head to foot in Confederate grey. The latter, one 
of the Bent hoys, and both sleeping the long 
sleep that knew no waking. 




A PART OF OLD InDIAN ViLLAGE AT FORT BeRTHOLD. 
I From a phttograpli by MoriYnv in ISTO.] 



FORT BSRTHQLD AQENCY IN 1869. 

EARLY in the spring months of. 1869, the rest- 
less Sioux of the Missouri river agencies, 
commenced gathering in small war parties for one 
more general raid against the remnants of the 
Mandans, Gros Ventres and Aricaree Indians of 
the Fort Herdiold agency. The almost cease- 
less struggle that had reached beyond a century 
of years between these warlike combatants were 
now to all appearances being settled in favor of 
I he former nation. 

The buffalo grass had scarcely put forth its Bow- 
er, 1 efore SioLi.x sentinels stood like stone mounds 
and almost as immovable, looking down from high 
])oin s of the winding bluffs that encircled the be- 
leagured village ; and, like watchful falcons, seek- 
ing opportunities to dart on their unguarded prey. 
Mounted .squads of Sioux dashed around here and 
there, to . intercept hunting parties and destroy 
ihem, thus reducing the inmates of the allied vil- 
l:.ge 10 gaunt famine and starvation. 

in one instance a brave band of Aricaree hunt- 
ers accompanied by some of their women, and led 
by Son of the Star's eldest son, were waylaid in 
a deep coulee, Ijy a band of their enemies, led by 
a son of die Yanktoney Sioux chief Two Bears. 
.L he Aricaree- hunters were returning from the 



6o Frontier ami Indian Life. 

Painted Woods Lake, with ponies loaded with 
elk and deer meat, and were attacked in the coulee 
above the present town of Washburn, in McLean 
county, and atier a running- hg-ht for several miles 
the Sioux leader was killed, and his foremost foe 
moriaClly wounded. An Aricaree woman was also 
killed and pony supply train captured or dispersed. 

Signal glasses, rock and smoke signs, were ob- 
served in ominous frequency by the allied watch- 
ers from [heir house towers during the day from 
both sides of the Missouri, and the glare of 
fire signals lent their aid to multiply the horrors 
of the night. 

Women were shot down and scalped while tend- 
ing their little garden patches within call of the 
village. Danger stalked in every form around 
and even widiin iis sombre precincts after nightfall. 
Horses and ponies disappeared nightly from the 
pastures — from the pickets, and even from the 
lodges of the sleeping owners, for in dangerous 
times a comnion canopy, with a raw hicie partition 
was all that separated an allied warrior and his 
steed ; and the family shared the stored food widi 
the serviceable beast. 

One night in the early spring, a Aricaree modier 
was hushing her crying child vviih a song. 1 he 
door of ihe lodge was secur(^ A stealhy Sioux 
spy located her voice, and proceeded to cut a hole 
through the wail with his tomahawk to make a 
place for his rilie. A passing Aricaree v., ariior 
interrupLs him and recives the shot ana the deadi 



¥(n<i Bkri'iiold AtiKNcv in 1869. 61 

intended lor the unsuspecting songstress. In the 
confusion that ensiled, the spy made good his 
escape. 

These scenes with an occasional shift or varia- 
tion, were but the repetition year after year in the 
long dreary decades of the past to th(i Mandans, 
Gros Ventres and Aricarees. A people of fixed 
habitation, they were made a surer mark — a surer 
prey to the hostile nomadic tribes ; being in a 
permanent location, they were easily found and as 
easily watched. 

On the other hand when it became necessary 
to strike back, these Fort Berthold bands had an 
uncertain hunt and an uncertain find before them, 
A camp of roving Sioux were frequently on the 
move. Each turn of the seasons found them on 
changed grounds and sometimes in new territory. 

By these convicting conditions and habits be- 
tween these people it is easily seen that the Sioux 
become the hunlers and the Port Berthold allied 
tribes the hunted, a clear disadvantage to the lat- 
ter. Witness the destruction of the Aricaree vil- 
lages on Grr.nd River and the Moreau ; of the 
massacre of the inhabitants of the two Mandan 
villr.ges en the south bank of Apple creek, and 
the almost total annihilation of the Anhnaways 
at iheir village near where the county seat of Oli- 
\ er nov,' rests. 

All of these disasters to the allied Indians of 
fixed re.sidences happened within the past century. 
Numerciaily they had been reduced nine-tenths in 



62 FkoN'TIKR AM' IXDI.W LllI'. 

that same period of lime ; althou_ij;'h small pox 
and cholera were the principal causes ot iheir de- 
cimation. Even in warding off these des rue live 
diseases the Sioux, also, had the advantage of 
their stationary neighbors, for on their firs L appear- 
ance the camp would break up and scalier lo every 
point of the compass like a brood of frighUMied 
prairie chickens, and thereby escaping the danger 
of general infection, and relying on good waier 
pure air and fresh grassy beds as auxiliery disin- 
fectants. 

The confederate bands of the Sioux, in 1869, 
exclusive of the Assinabomes, their northern 1 re:h- 
ern, numbered somewhere near about forly thou- 
sand. They were the only wild Indians on the 
American continent growing strong in spiu- of ihe 
agressive bearings upon them of modern civiliza- 
tion and without conforming lo its imperious usa- 
ges, other than adapting themselves lo the use of 
certain kinds of clolhi ng ; a watchful regard for the 
improved implemenis of war, and a caretul irain- 
inp- in their use. 

They were rich in horses and trained from boy- 
hood in the saddle. By treaty with the govern- 
ment in 1867, and 1868, immense herds of iexr.s 
cattle had been issued to them in^paymeni for 
ceded lands, which, wiih the vast her^ls of buffalo 
that as ye L roamed over their extensive donirjn, 
placed them eidier as tributary tribes, or wards of 
a nation, in a prosperous position. 

Trading posts had been establislied at conxeni- 



Fort Berthold Agency in 1869. 63 

ent distances by the ^reat Durfee & Peck trading 
company from whose establishments improved fire 
arms and metallic amunition could be purchased 
in quantities to suit the demands of their custom- 
ers. The company's policy like that in more civ- 
ilized communities was to favor their best custom- 
ers, and these in this instance, was the prosper- 
ous and haughty Sioux. 

The Fort Ber.hold bands had none of these ad- 
vantages. The three tribes numbered scarcely 
two thousand all told, and of this number the Ar- 
icarees counted one half. They had made a 
ireaty with the Goveriinieii: — had ceded large 
tracts of lands for prom'ses unfulfilled. A pair 
of pants 10 a chief a calico dress or a shawl for 
some female favorite, was about all that reached 
liiem after passing through the gauntlet where 
ihe agent, the inspector and the issuing clerk took 
iiirns in their stand along the line for the "whack- 
up." Then above all and first of all came the 
immense maw of the Durfee & Peck company, 
whose resident agents were superior to the Gov- 
ernment ones, inasmuch as the potent influences 
of that company governed their appointments and 
tenure of office. 

What interests had the Durfee & Peck estab- 
lishment in the poor starving ragamuffin horde 
cooped up in the Indian village at Fort Berthold ? 
They had nothing to trade. Not even the satis- 
faction of handling their own "wak-u-pominy" or 
presents. 




II 



I 







I 




Fort Bektihu.I) Acenc\ in 1869. 6 



o 



Over forty had died since the month of Febru- 
ary, by actual or partial starvation, in addition to 
those mowed down by the arrows and bullets of 
the Sioux. No visible attempt was made to alle- 
viate this state of aifairs by the local managers of 
the Durfee & Peck company, or the agent of the 
Government. True, that some move had been 
made to better their condition by the military 
authorities at the neighboring post. Fort Steven- 
son, but their means and power to do were re- 
stricted in the premises, and of little benefit. 

Having nothing to trade or sell, they had no 
arms for defense save a few muzzle loading rifles 
and shot guns, and some bows and arrows, pikes, 
spoiitoons and war clubs, making up their rude, 
out-of-date martial equipments, to match in battle 
an enemy many times more numerous and by all 
odds the best booted and best armed wild Indians 
within the limits of the Republic. 

Such were the daily observations and reflections 
of the writer during the month of May of that 
year, while the guest of Jefferson Smith the patri- 
archal ex-trapper and trader in the camp of the 
Gros Ventres. 

On the first day of June, I moved to a wood 
camp, some three miles up the river from the 
/Agency, near one of the Indian crossings of the 
Missouri. The first night of our stay, I was in- 
iatiated in river wood yard life with an after re- 
memberance. About midnight we were alarmed 
by a surround of enemies. Signal fires at the 
crossings of the wood roads, and the stampeding 



64 Frontier ami Indian Lifk. 

of stock, told us but too well that a cordon of 
danger was about us. 

"We will not stay in here to be killed, " said 
one of my two companions — Beauchamp 2nd, — 
who with Charley Reeder jumped through an open 
window and out into a thicket of wallows. They 
left me with but a single pistol and a host of un- 
pleasant thoughts. A capture of about thirty 
ponies seemed to have satisfied the Sioux, who 
went away and my comrades returned. 

A day or two later, with the help of an Aricarree 
boy I was banking wood at the narrows within an 
easy gun shot across the stream. 

"Look at that Antelope," said the boy, as he 
pointed to a partly poised figure across on a knoll. 

"Look at that Sioux !" I answered a moment 
later as a orhsteninof mm barrel reflected from the 
supposed antelope. The boy hid from view. In 
a few seconds more, thirty Sioux warriors stood 
abreast, and scanned that neighborhood closely. 

One year after, Santee Jim who was with this 
war party told me had they seen this boy, they 
would have crossed over and had his scalp, and 
had I resisted or tried to protect him, took mine 
along for company. The Aricaree boy was k'.lled 
by a Sioux war party three years later — June, 1872. 

On the morning of June 6th, a down stream 
sLeamer landed at our yard to take on wood. It 
had just returned from from the mountains and re- 
ported large Sioux war pardes moving down both 
sides of the Missouri, and but a few miles away 



Fort Bertholi) Agenc\ tn 1869. 65 

On this boat was a passenger from the mouth 
of Musselshell River, a frontiersman who had 
"made his name." He had on board of the 
steamer, about thirty whitened skulls of Santee 
Sioux, from which he had boiled the flesh in bi^ 
kettles, while lengthening out his stay at Clen- 
dening's trading post. That place was attacked 
early in the spring by about sixty of Standing 
Buffalo's band of Santee Sioux, and very fortun- 
ate for Clendening's men, a crowd of wolfers and 
buffalo hunters happened along about the same 
time. The Santees were on foot and findine the 
garrison stronger than they had first calculated on, 
attempted a retreat. In this, however, they were 
foiled by the good generalship of George Gren- 
nell, a noted frontier character, and ably seconded 
by Johnson, the head-boiling passenger mentioned. 
The outcome was, the Indians were flanked and 
hemmed in a deep cut, and one-half of them ex- 
terminated. The whites lost but one. It was 
after the fiirht that our worthy received his name, 
viz: — Liver Eating Johnson. He was afterwards 
a trusty scout on several military expeditions 
against hostile Indians. 

On the morning of the 8th of June, the long 
struggle between the bcligerent Indians around 
Fort Berthold, came to a finish. My companions 
had started down to the Indian village the day 
previous, leaving me alone with a small revolver 
and a muzzel-loading shot gun as weapons of de- 
ense. About eight o'clock, Pautoo, or the Paint, 



66 P'R(!\!i!:k AM) Indian Liir:. 

an Aricaree. and a brother of the medicine man 
of the tribe came stepping- briskly up to our cabin 
door. He had been hunting deer, he said, in the 
surrounding woods wilh bow and arrows but had 
poor luck, and asked in a submissive manner for 
the loan of the shot gun for a short time. On 
giving him permission to take it, he hurriedly 
starred off His nervous actions excited my sus- 
picions and I followed oiit the trail to the timher 
opening where a surprising, and not an altogether 
pleasing situation was in view for my edincation. 
About half way between the line of timber and 
the Indian village, the winding and sparcely tim- 
bered coulee called F"our Bears was plainly marked 
by abrupt appearing bluffs. On ihe plain near the 
bluffs larcre bodies of mounted men could be seen 
scurring around — now in plain view — now obf^cured 
by dust. The wind v\as blo\^ing■ a hurricane. The 
horsemen were riding in swift circles and seemed 
at times like flying debris in the vortex of a cy- 
clone. It was an Indian battle. F"or over two 
hours, from a tree perch I watched the savage 
combatants. At last the revolving objects prew 
dim from dust and distance, and fragnientary bod- 
ies from the main circles v\ ere receding to the far- 
away bluffs Dismounting from my perch with a 
relief of mind, feeling satisfied that the Aricaree.s 
and their allies had won the day. And so it 
proved. 

At sundown, Pautoo returned with the gun and 
his apologies. He brought a bleeding scalp lock 
freshly cut from a Sioux warrior's head, and a fine 



Fort Bekthold A(;enc\ in 1869. 67 

beaded buckskin gun cover and some other tro- 
phies from the battle field at Four Bears. He 
claimed wonderful merits in the borrowed shot gun 
and with vieorous rhetoric told the deeds of valor 
it enabled him to accomplish. Thus he molified the 
resentment engendered by his adroit manoeuvre 
of arming himself at my expense in our common 
danger on the opening of the battle. 

Late that same evening the balance of the wood 
yard crew came up from the Fort and the story of 
the battle graphically told. When the Sioux were 
first discovered, there were only four of them in 
sight. These were mounted and on top of a 
high hill overlooking the allied village and were 
riding the sign of the challenge. A little later full 
five hundred red painted Dakota warriors, who 
had evidently been in hiding since early daylight, 
swarmed out from the ravines mounted on their 
high mettled war ponies, and made a mad rush for 
the village and its terrified people. Following the 
stark and panting blood hunters, rode one hundred 
women — veritable war woman — to the expectant 
dance over the blood -clotted dead, amid the smoul- 
dering ruins of the last village of their hereditary 
enemies. Out from the threatened village went 
forth its defenders to meet their enemies, undis- 
mayed by the superiority in numbers of the com- 
ing^ hosts, or the lack of arms to meet them on 
chosen ground. The dogs bayed, the woman 
screamed and old men tottering with infermaties 
of years or swaying their conscious course with 



68 FkOXlIl'.K AM) IXDTAX LiKK. 

the affliction of siohtless eyes tread for\\arcl to ihe 
sounds of shill whistles, rattle of g"uns and swish 
of flying arrows. It was a characterestic Indian 
battle where the warrior shout and talk as he hohts. 

In a lull, White Shield, the old and valiant chief 
of the Aricarees, rode out between the hostile 
lines like the ancient Saracens before die crnm 
walls of Damascus and Antioch. "I am old," he 
shouted, "my teeth are bad — I can't eat corn. I 
am ready to die. Will my enemy meet me — will 
my enemy come," This was a challenge to the 
leader of the opposing forces. No answer was 
returned. The leader of the Sioux, young Two 
Bears was already dead. The veteran Aricaree 
chief returned to the ranks of his men. Though 
a conspicuous target to his enemies the chivalry of 
the savaee code forbid him harm. 

The fighting begun again and after a terrific en- 
counter the Sioux broke and went flying in scat- 
tered bands from the field. At this moment a tor- 
rent of rain and hail came down from an almost 
cloudless sky. 

"Hold — my men hold," again the White Shield 
"the Great Spirit warns us — let them go." He 
interpreted the signs of the heavens as a cessation 
of strife, and in so doing averted a running fight 
and massacre of the wounded. 

A few weeks before the fight, a young Sioux, 
the son of White Bull, a chief of the lower Min- 
neconjous, became a guest of the Mandans. By 
inter-tribal law and adherence to a savage's code 



P"()KT HkRTHOLD AgENCV IN 1869. 69 

of honor, he. must assist his intertainers in their 
day of need even as against his friends and rela- 
tives on the field of battle. The young man was 
out v.nd ready at the first sound of alarm, and with 
a new Winchester rifle, the only one used in the 
fight by the allied tribes on the field. He was in 
the fore of the fight from the begining to the end 
and his quick firing gun did great execution. — 
When the victors returned to the villagfe, fear and 
grief were replaced by smiles and joy from the 
anxious ones who had watched the battle from the 
house tops, The brave young Minneconjou was 
pardcularly sought out by the grateful red maids 
and showered with kisses and other tokens of 
mead for his chivalerous gallantry in this — 
their hour of need. It was an after consolation to 
the young brave, for on his return to the Minne- 
conjues some weeks after he was soldiered — 
showered with imprecations and clubs. 

In this engagement the Sioux lost about forty 
killed and wounded and the P^ort Berthold bands 
about half of that number. But the end was not yet. 

On a branch of the Heart river, August ist, 
1S69, there lay encamped a village of the lower 
Yanktoney under the old chief Two Bears. This 
band of the Sioux had taken the leading part in 
all the hostile attacks against the Indians at Fort 
Berthold for many years. In the spring raids the 
old chief had lost two sons. He had followed the 
promptings of his reople rather than that of his 



yo Frontier and Indian Life. 

own more peaceful inclinations and was preparing 
once more to invest the doomed village by the 
muddy Missouri. He had offers of assistance 
from the Two Kettles, lower Uncpapas and 
Grass's band of Blackfeet. It was from this val- 
ley of the Heart, that the war parties would be 
made up. The women and children had remained 
thus far with the camp, as no particular danger 
was anticipated. For weeks past, the lonely 
widow or mother had mourned from the hill tops 
in sobs and moans for the fallen braves of the 
wind swept plains around the coulee of Four 
Bears, 

On this first day of August, a hot simoon had 
been blowing from the south, when about midday 
the wind lulled and a stifling calm followed. The 
ponies, tethered or pickeled stood in restful quiet 
under the shades of some scattering cottonwood. 
The drowsy mother — the child tired out with ils 
rompings in the grass, and the warrior exhausted 
from the morning scout or hunt — all lay sleeping 
peacefully and quietly in the shade of their lodg- 
es. The sentinals alone remained at their posts 
though even there, Morpheus beckoned not in 
vain. Such of those that were awake at about 
two o'clock could have observed — if such a com- 
mon thing had been noticable — a wolf showing 
itself from the point of a hill west of the camp, 
and about a mile away. The wolf was surveying 
the camp with that observnent curiosity peculiar to 
its kind. Affer apparently satisfying itself, it 



Fort Berthold Agency in 1869. 71 

frisked nimbly about for a moment or more and 
disappeared from view over the brow of the hill. 
Do you notice, now, sleepy sentinal, a little whiff 
of smoke curling up in air from the direction of 
the wolf's trail ? Do you notice how hard the 
west wind blows ? Have you noticed how dry the 
grass is ? You should have, if you did not ! A 
howling, shrieking and hissing girdle of fire-flame 
is upon you, and enveloping you, and while some 
of you may save yourselves in the creek bed, your 
camp your horses are lost. 



FORT PHIL KEARNEY. 

NO military post ever constructed on the far 
western frontier, during its occupancy, had 
so much oi the tragic — so much speculative 
thought for the believer in the doctrine of foreor- 
dination or fatalism, or the strange and romantic 
turns in the after lives of its garrison as Fort Phil 
Kearney. 

It had been named in honor of the famous offi- 
cer who lost his life at the head of his troops at 
Chantilly, September i, 1862, during Pope's "in 
the saddle" campaign between Washington, D. C. 
and the Confederate capital. 

The post was one of a chain of forts planned 
by the Government for the protection of the Mon- 
tana road, a contemplated thoroughfare from 
Platte river along the eastern base of the Rocky 
mountains, to the mining districts of eastern Mon- 
tana. 

An expedition with this object in view left Fort 
Kearney on Platte river, in June, 1866, under 
command of Col. H. B. Carrinoton, which con- 
sisted of two thousand men, to be evenly distrib- 
uted at the different proposed posts. Col. Car- 
rington chose a site on a tributary stream of Pow- 
der river, and on fuly 14th. of the same year work 



^1 II ip iii iii iiiii iiiiiiipni i nip ! 



^ mmiilmu . ^'^ ^fi . S^-rm^ni^ ^ i^;^ - . . 



PfcpiK^ •«■! Bi^iiiiHii 



(i^l^iMx. 




Red Cloud, 



Ogallalla Chief and Leader of the Fort 
Phi I. Kearney MASsAtRE. 



¥()]<■[' Pi ill, IvEAkiXKY. JT, 

on the new post commenced under commander 
Carrington's personal supervision and by October, 
the fort was enclosed. 

¥/hile the country, there had been known as 
'Crow country," it was at that time, by right of 
possession, a part of the Sioux domain. The Og- 
allallas under the chief Red Cloud, and High Back 
Bone, a chief of the Minneconjous, with their fol- 
lowers were bitterly opposed to the opening of 
the Montana road through their game preserves, 
and commenced venting their spleen by harassing 
the garrison at Fort f;hil Kearney. The beef herd 
was run off and two soldiers killed during the first 
week of the military occupation, and frequent rep- 
etition of hostile raids with more or less causual- 
ties during' the balance of the summer months. 

On the 2 1 St day of December of that year, the 
hostile ^ittacks culmmated in a general assault on 
the wood train and escort. The post lookout had 
been' signalled to for aid, and commander Carring- 
ton sent out a relief party of eighty-four men, 
consisting • of both infantry and cavalry, besides 
two cilizen scouts, the whole force under Colonel 
Fetterman. The Indians were seen on a ridee on 
the east side side of Peno creek, having retired 
in a feint from the wood train in order to success- 
fully entrap the coming soldiers. Fetterman, be- 
ing an impetuous officer rushed into an ambuscade, 
and in less than two hours all were killed. 

The battle is generally spoken of as the "Fort 
Phil Kearney massacre," and next to Custer's 



A MEDICIME SHAKERS CATASTROPHE. 

FOR several weeks succeeding the Indian bat- 
de of Four Bear coulee, in 1869, the Aric- 
arees and their alHes had a respite from the rig- 
orous investment of the Sioux. But vigilance 
on the part of the Berthold bands did not cease 
with the route and dispersion of the enemy in 
pitched battle, and small watching parties were 
out and on the alert for any sudden movement in 
the ranks of the recuperating foe. 

Although near the fort, Reeder's wood yard 
was located on dangerous ground, being near the 
much used Beaver creek crossing of the Missou- 
ri, and videttes from the allied village were often 
appearing in different parts of the timber, to guard 
against a possible surprise, especially, from harm 
that might comc^ upon their woman who were 
daily floating down their supply of wood in bull 
boats, for their home. Reeder and myself 
continued at the woodyard after the battle, and 
was joined by Joe Putney who had assisted the 
Fort Berthold bands by taking a hand in the late 
engagement at Four Bears. 

With axe, maul and cross cut saw. Putney and 
myself drew a line, day by day, on the average 
chopper's out-put. A rest in the shade \vas a re- 
lief from the rays of the sun; while again, work 
in the sun was a relief from ravenous mosquitoes. 



A Mkdu i.NE Sxakk's Catastrophe. ""i 

W'e were always armed, for at no time were we 
free from the danger of a shot or the swish of an 
arrow from ambush. The lurking Uncpapa at 
that time regarded the pale faced — or hog faced 
as they chose to call the woodchopper — his especial 
game that season on the Upper Missouri, and we 
were being continually informed by the Aricarees 
of the passing to and fro of Uncpapa spies to the 
village at Fort Berthold, endeavoring to enlist 
them in the general raid against the whites of the 
whole upper country. 

On one occasion we unbuckled our pistols and 
laid our guns at the stump of the tree while we 
vv^^re both busy with our axes at the fallen top, — 
The space between ourselves and guns was not 
over thirty feet, but it was room enough for two 
painted warriors to pop out of the bushes with 
drawn bows and stand guard over our unprotected 
arsenal on the stump of the tree. 

"We are goners," ejaculated Putney, as he 
looked toward the scrowling savages. But one of 
them proved to be Man Chief, a Mandan, and his 
move was only to convince us how' easily it was to 
take our top-knots w-ere they so disposed. At 
another time,;" he repeated the experiment. ,; this 
time being alone, but on horse back. His identity 
was hid in paint until he chose to disclose himself. 
Mandans and Uncpapas resemble each other in 
dress 'and head gear, and as most o^i the Mandans 
were 'masters of the Sioux dialect, he used his dis- 
guise to shovv how neatly we could be trapped. 



yS Frontier and Indian Life. 

and in feigned wonderment asked us why we had 
brought out our weapons in the woods for enemies 
to pick up. But many were the woodchoppers 
that went to death under like circumstances in, 
those days, when red men more bloodthirsty than 
Man Chief, adopted this method of disarming his 
foe before killing him. 

At another time while Putney and myself were 
sawinsf up a large tree, a monstrous bull snake 
crawled out from an aperture and Putney ran for 
his pistol and shot it. Ihe huge snake was sev- 
eral feet long and one of the very largest of its 
species. After examining the ugly reptile, Putney 
threw it athwarth the trail where it was stumbled 
on by a passing band of Aricarees. They exam- 
ined it with circumspection, and an apparant feel- 
ing of awe. They spoke in subdued voices and 
to us who were listening, sounded like whispering 
anthems among the trees, and after some hurried 
glances toward us, the mourners with our victim on 
a rude bier passed along the trail toward the village. 

It was then nearing the month of July, and the 
Indian's gardens were looking fine under the 
strengthening influence of copious showers, and 
the woman, with less (ear of the lurking foe and 
his terrible scalping knife arose willingly at the 
sturdy call of the village crier and hilled up the 
shooting stalks of corn and weeded among their 
crawling vines of sqashes and melons, cheerfully. 
But disappointment once more cast down their 
revived hopes and the mysteries whose interpreta- 



Fkc'.ntikk am.) Indian Lhk. 79 

tion was the provence, alone, of the medicine man, 
and Medicine Lance the venerable seer of the Ar- 
icarees, was the one of all others to read aright 
the signs of its veiled portents. A chief medicine 
snake had been found killed, and while its blood 
was not upon the hands of the Aricarees, its 
destruction had been wrought by their pale-faced 
brothers who claimed kinship with their tribe. 

The medicine man moved slowly. Elements 
of the air, tossed in frenzied fury solved the riddle, 
and he could then only know that bad spirits in 
countless numbers — in legions as compact as an 
arctic ice field, and as complex as the starry 
hosts along the milky way, — darkened the heavens 
in sombre green, and for two hours there poured 
down hail that beat holes in the earth and white- 
ened its surface, and torrents of rain that turned 
every coulee into a raging river. And more fear- 
ful yet, the mighty thunder bird of the Gros Ven- 
tres roared and tore and spit forth fire the like, the 
poor mystified red inhabitants of the villao-e had 
never before witnessed. 

When morning came and the sun poured forth 
its light it cast its ra>s upon ruined gardens and 
desolate, ragged groves. All the woman of the 
^ village went out to witness their damaged crops. 
Half suppressed murmers escaped their lips but 
articulate w^ords found no voice. 

About ten o'clock in the morning followincj- the 
disastrous cloud burst — for such it appeared to 
have been, — about twenty Indians in sinole file 



So I*"R( )N 111' k AN I > L\ I >1 A N Ll FE. 

passed alonq- the trail near where we were chop- 
ping and sawing, leading off in the direction of our 
camp. Not knowing to a certainty what tribe they 
belonged to. we thought it prudent and proper to 
follow them to our cabin. We arrived in time to 
witness a very excitable harangue between the 
Aricaree chief White Shield and Reeder, the latter 
being proficient in the Aricaree tongue, and also 
an adept in the Indian sign language. The whole 
party were squatted on the ground floor in a semi- 
circle and grunted assent to their chief's fiery flow 
of ill-tempered language. Among those present 
sat Medicine Lance, Sharp Horn and Two Crows, 
the three medicine men of the tribe, with rank in 
the order named, and Little Fox, the Pawnee Ot- 
tacoots and Moccasin Carrier. The solemn ver- 
dict as rendered, was, that the responsibility of the 
night's catastrophe rested upon those who had 
destroyed the chief medicine snake, and that w^e 
must prepare to leave there instanter or die. We 
knew enough of the character of the w^ild Indian 
to prepare to go at once and after serving a feast 
as intertainment to these luckless and gruff lords 
of the domain, we pulled out for the military post 
of Fort Stevenson. The Medicine Lance's ex- 
pression on that occasion that "the slayer of the 
chief medicine snake will die as it died," was lit- 
erally fullfilled. The snake shot through the 
neck had died instantly, and the same fate followed 
Putney in a Sioux camp a few years later on, and 
his body carried from the scene of the tragedy, as 



A Medicine Snare's CAiASTKorHE. 81 

was the body of the reptile, and the great thunder 
bird of the Gros Ventres once more roared, and 
spit fire, and drenched the lonely valley of the 
stagnant Hermaphrodite. It had sheltered in am- 
bush Putney's slayers. Reeder was killed in 
less than a year after the snake's death, and by 
fire and fiood, by freezing, by starvation, by sick- 
ness and by bullet, the arrow and the tomahawk, 
these Aricaree guardians and avengers of the 
chief medicine snake, as herein recorded, have 
long since passed into the realm of the spirit 
land. 

MB: 



m 



Mf& 



^ 



A RIFT IN THE CLOUDS. 

JULY 2nd 1869, one of the Durfee & Peck line 
of steamers landed at Fort Stevenson with 
Major General Hancock, and staff aboard. Ihe 
General was makin^^ a tour of inspection amono- 
the military posts of his department and had just 
came down from Montana. While the boat was 
tied up at the landing- pending post inspection, 
a council was held w^ith the chiefs of the Mandans 
Gros V'entres and Aricarees, on the one side and 
that distinguished officer on the other. The im- 
pressive ceremony took place in the cabin of the 
boat and all available room was occupied by spec- 
tators. The writer of these pa^"es embraced the 
opportunity and was present. White Shields and 
Son of the Star represented the Aricarees; Croud's 
Breast and Poor Wolf talked for the Gros \'en- 
tres, while Red Cow and Bad Gun plead the cause 
of the Mandans. Two famous interpret ers were 
present. One of these, Pierrie Gareau, was the 
son of the half breed Aricaree chief Gareau, w^ho 
was cruelly murdered by a. party of trappers on 
the Papallion river, Nebraska, in the sun^iUier of 
1832, thereby precipitating a war with the Arica- 
rees which lasted many years. The otht-r inter- 
preter was the veteran trader Packineau, a brilli- 
ant linguist, speaking correctly many different In- 
dian languages. 



A Rift in The Clouds. 83 

The venerable White Shield opened the coun- 
cil with a speech. The ready flow of language 
and perfect gesticulations as this red leader stood 
up in his chief's robes, gave him a picturesque 
appearance that was pleasing alike to the General 
and spectators. The chief was then near seventy 
years of age, and, among his people had long 
stood their formest spokesmen and orator. In 
his younger day he was a famed warrior and duel- 
ist, and but few battles ever happened around the 
Aricaree village in his time, that White Shield did 
not fight in the front rank. 

The second speaker was Son of the Star, the 
Indian Daniel Webster. He had an intelligent 
countenance ; a chief of commanding appear- 
ance, and though a logical talker did not have the 
passionate vehemence of White Shield. His 
good judgment and able presentation of his peo- 
plt-'s plea, won the admiration of the General. 

The third speaker was Crow's Breast, the Gros 
Ventre, a tall raw boned chieftain whose bass voice 
sounded down to the toes of his moccasins. Next 
came Poor Wolf a modest speaker without much 
display of rhetoric but whose appearance com- 
manded attention until he sit down. Then arose 
Bad Gun the second chief of the Mandans. This 
warrior was the surviving son of Four Bears, 
the most noted chief of his time on the Upper 
Missouri, who died during the small pox epidem- 
ic which swept away a whole village of the Man- 
dans. He talked dreamily and with little force. 



AROUND GRAND RIYKR AGENCY, 1S89. 

ABOUT the second week in July, 1869, the 
writer found himself at the Cheyenne river 
Indian agency; having accompanied General 
Hancock's party by steamer to that place. This 
was one of three Sioux agencies established by 
General Harney the autumn previous; an- 
other beinof on Whetstone creek above Fort 
Randall, and the remaining one being located just 
above the confluence of the Grand and Missouri 
rivers. The Cheyenne agency was located about 
midway betu^een the two others and all three of 
them contained wild, turbulent Sioux bands, that, 
had as yet defied the restrictive and coercive mea- 
sures employed by the Government to bring them 
within easy reach of its power. To use a trap- 
per's phrase, a few huge "draw baits" had been 
put out to bring to bait the wily red man, while 
in a confidential and unsuspicious mood. 

But the lured Sioux like the baited fox or coy- 
ote did not rest his case on simple outside appear- 
ances. He watched for possible traps and dead- 
falls, and everywhere he roamed, or wherever he 
pitched his lodge, his weapons of war was his first 
care, and his every move was that of the vidette 
always on duty. They had come in from their 
hunting ranges at the invitation of the Govern- 




\A'HITE RFLL. rillEF OK THE S.ANS ARCS SlOFX, AND FAMILY. 



Around Grand River Agency, 1869. ^"j 

ment, but their stay and their behaviour was owing 
to the fickleness of circumstances. 

The Minneconjous, Sans Arcs and Etasapas, 
three very unruly bands or divisions of the Sioux 
nation were the principal recipients of the Govern- 
ment annuity distribution at the Cheyenne river 
agency, in 1869. There were a sprinkling of 
other bands, but these named were more fully 
represented, being about three thousand in all. 

About the first of August, there was an almost 
total eclipse of the sun, and there was here en- 
acted at that time some strange and exciting hap- 
penings in the camps of these wild people. When 
the sun's disk began to darken, the Indians, men, 
woman and children began howling and screaming 
like mad people, and v/ere joined in chorus by all 
the dogs in camp. Indians with a semi-civilized 
appearance but an hour before, now became the 
savage pure and simple, outdoing the African Hot- 
tentot, the Bushman or the Mantabelle, in wild 
origies and heathenish rites. The firing of guns 
towards the darkened sun, roarino- like a battle, 
and amidst the noise cries of "wake him up — wake 
him up — the sun is sleeping," could be heard above 
the racket and v/ould be repeated over and over 
again. The agency interpreter then came up to 
the camp and reminded us that our presence 
among them at that time in their frenzied state 
was dangerous, not only to ourselves but to the 
balance of the employees of the agency, as the 
mere presence of a white man amongst the reds 



88 Frontier and Indian Likk. 

at such a time would invite death from the hand 
of some medicine making fanatic, and when once 
blood was shed, their curbing would be difficult. 

Some days after the eclipse, a heavy storm ac- 
companied by terrific lightening and deafening 
peals of thunder swept over the camp, and one 
whole family killed by lightening in one lodge, 
and a solitary woman in another part of the 
villap'e. Several medicine men in the tribes laid 
the disaster to evil spirits superinduced by whites, 
when some relatives of the stricken families thus 
sacrificed, armed themselves vvith the intention of 
shootinor down the first "white face" that crossed 
their path, and when such word reached the agen- 
cy, curiosity tours to the Indian village, lacked in- 
terest among the employees. 

Toward the latter part of August, I board(>d 
the little stearn wheeler, Peninah, Captain Hancy, 
of Pittsburg in command, and steamed up the 
Missouri, to the Grand river agency, in obedience 
to a request from Contractor Dillon, to serve as 
guard, outrider and dispatch bearer between his 
various camps, then doing business in that end of 
the Sioux reservation. The rendesvous or head- 
quarters of the contractor and his partner. Charles 
McCarthy, vv^as on the east bank oi the Missouri, 
and nearly opposite the mouth of Grand river. 

Three divisions of the Sioux were here repre- 
sented, the Blackfeet, Two Bear's Yanktoney, and 
the Lower Uncpapas. Considerable trouble had 
occurred about one month previous at the agency 



Around Guaxd Rivku A(;en(:v, 1S69. 89 

by the aggressive Uncpapas, and the killing- of the 
white employees and destruction of the agency 
buildings and stores was only averted by the de- 
termined will and bravery of a few friendly dis- 
posed Yanktoney and Blackfeet. 

After a fev/ days rest at the agency a dispos- 
ition was made of the various gangs, and it fell to 
the writer's portion to be of a party of four hay- 
makers LO commence the s^^ason's cut on the Blue 
Blanket creek, on the east bank of the Missouri. 
The first night out we made camp on the river's 
bank, opposite Blue Blanket island, and about six 
miles from the agency. We had with us four 
mule?, a pair of them being just purchased from 
the Indians, and a remarkable fine team. After 
making camp and having supper, my companions 
Y\ent down along- the river bank a few hundred 
yards, for the purpose of fishing and bathing, while 
I remained behind to look after the camp and the 
mules. A hard wind had been blowing all day, 
and as the great red sun was slowly decending be- 
lov/ the distant bluffs, the wind slackened into 
fitful gusts. While taking observations from camp 
over the plains, my eyes rested on some objects 
among the high grass in a swail not over tour 
hundred yards from the grazing" mules. A waft 
of wind bending' the tall sv/aying grass, had first 
marked the objects indistinctly, but a heavier 
draft immediately followed, revealed a lot of 
painted Indians crawling on their hands and knees 
heading' toward the stock. Alarming- m\' compan- 



90 F"r()NTIER and Indian Li ff. 

ions who came running- up with their clothes in 
one hand and o-uns in the other, we rushed out 
near the mules, and laying on the grass, were 
prepared to meet the onslaught. But the Indians 
evidently finding themselves discovered, retreated 
under cover of darkness, although not knowing it 
at the time, we kept vigilant guard until daylight. 

In the early morning, Contractor Dillon and the 
Government chief Thunder and Liorhtnino- came 
riding into our camp. Thunder and Lightning- 
was the accredited chief of a band of Sissetons; yet 
chief making by the strong arm and good offices 
of the Government when not supported with the 
pronounced approved judgir. en! of ihe tril.e. were 
usually failures. In other words lo i:se die In- 
dians' figurative and expressive vernacular he had 
"sat down" as a chief of the Sissetons, and with a 
following of three lodges had betook himself from 
the scenes of his earlier ambition and was now 
roving the plains and at this time was an unpre- 
tentious guest of the Yanktoneys. 

Dillon was uneasy on om* account from what 
had happened at the agency the afternoon before. 
The agency herder, a younp;' man named Cook, 
while on duty, and with no weapon but a whip, 
had been approached by a mounted Uncpapa and 
several arrows shot in his body. The Indian, who 
v/as a brother of the chief Long Soldier after com- 
mitting the deed, rode up to the agency with, a 
crowd of followers and proclaimed aloud that they 
would slauehter the first white men who turned a 



Around Grand River Agency, 1869. 91 

furrow with a breaking plow or cut a swath with a 
mowing machine around the Grand river agency. 
As considerable excitement followed this episode, 
Dillon secured the services of the red knight er- 
rant, Thunder and Lightning and son John, to help 
guard the hay camp against an attack from their 
hostile brethren. The acts of the lurking Indians 
the evening before, confirmed the necessity of vig- 
ilence, and as evening drew near, plans for our 
defense were studied out. Thunder and Litjht- 
ning and myself decided on taking the first watch 
from the twilight hour until midnight, The old 
Sisseton took post at the river bank near a point 
of willows, while my position was flat on the grass 
near the picketed mules. The moon arose in its 
full, and only at times lightly obscured by fleecy 
whiLe clouds, with not even the shrill whistling of 
an elk, the dull thudding alarms of traveling bea- 
\'er, or the skurrying through the air of passing 
wild fowls, so common at that time of the season 
along the Upper Missouri, So still, indeed, had 
our surroundings become, that soothing nods of 
quasi sleep lapped the links of time, as the hours 
swiftly glided toward midnight. Danger that had 
stalked in a distorted form to the twilight vision, 
became the mere substance of shadow, as the 
chilly air marked passing time. About the time I 
was thinking of waking up the relief guard, some 
one came crawling toward me from the direction 
of the camp. It was the old Sisseton, and he 
motioned me to follow him. As he drew near the 



c,?. Frontier ani^ Indian Like. 

edee of the M'illows, he made the sicrn of silence 
and then poimed to some objects in the river. At 
first I was inchned to think it a bull boat war par- 
ty but as they approached our shore they were 
c;asily defined, and were six Indians swimming 
their horses. Not a word ;vas spoken by ihem, 
and even in swimmincr. the spashing came to iis in 
muffled sounds. The Sisseton whispered to me 
in Sioux, that he had first noticed ihem coming 
out from the shadows of Blue Blanket island. We 
awaited undl the^' landed on a bar above camp, 
and from their silent speech and acdons, we 
became convinced they were on a hostile raid, and 
so alarmed camp; then the mounted warriors took 
to the praries on the run. Harmless Kelly, of our 
parLy, again, as on the alarm the night previous, 
took the scare crow view of matters, and kept up 
a shot gun fusilade until daylight upon ever inag- 
inable thing, even to shadows made by the moon, 
but possibly help accomplish the main objcc. — 
scare off the Indians and save our mules. 

Now an ii;!s;ance of Indian tenacity. C)ne year 
later at that very place, on the sanie business, 
these same nuiles were picketed. Harmlesr. Kelly, 
too, was with this latter party, and had spent the 
evening telling his ne,v/ comrades the two nights 
adventures with a war party in August, 1869, on 
the raise of ground where their tent was then 
pitched. But watchful Thunder and Lightning 
was not there to guard camp, and the; yawning 
haymakers retired to their blankets, while the 
grazing mules changed masters before the dawn. 



.^'^ 




John Grass, 



Chief Justice of the Sioux Nation. 



A WAR WOMAN, 

WITH the increase of population and mining- 
operations in Montana after the discovery 
and opening- of the gold mines in 1862, and the 
construction of additional military posts along the 
Upper Missouri, came also the increase of the 
l)oating business between the city of Saint Louis. 
Missouri, and Fort Benton, Montana, the last 
named place being the head of navigation on the 
Missouri river. 

In the years I867-8 and 1869, the tonnage o( 
freight transported up this river was enormous, 
over thirty s:eamers being constantly employed 
during the season of navigation in its transpor- 
tation. 

While the wood along the timbered bends for 
nearly a thousand miles of the steamer's course, 
could be had for the chopping and taking;- for 
steam healing and other necessary purposes, yet 
the difficulty and loss of time by the boats crew 
in iinding dry wood within the range of the tie-up, 
led the owners and captains of these steamers to 
induce a class of men to establish woodyards at 
convenient distances apart along the banks border- 
ing the channel of the stream. Each camp or 
yard, for the most part acting independent of the 
odisr, the price of wood being regulnted by its 



94 Frontier and Indian Life. 

particular location, or the kind and quality of the 
wood in rank. 

The life led by these isolated wood choppers or 
owners of the woodyards, was, owing to the hun- 
dreds of miles of territory roamed over by bands 
of hostile Indians, likened unto a guard or sen- 
tinal continually at his post. His life or his prop- 
erty was ever insecure. Thus it was, that during- 
the years above mentioned, nearly or quite one- 
third of these men so employed lost their lives, 
the wood destroyed and stock run off by Indians. 

A party of this class of men, together with some 
professional hunters, wolfers and trappers, having 
congregated at the Painted Woods — a heavy body 
of timber on the Missouri, midw^ay between the 
military posts of Forts Rice and Stevenson — during 
the autumn of 1869, a band of eleven of them 
were enlisted by Morris & Gluck, two enterprising- 
woodyard proprietors, to open up a new yard be- 
tween that point and Fort Stevenson. 

The point selected was called Tough Timber, 
near the present town of Hancock, McLean Coun- 
ty. Here on the i ith of November of that year, 
was commenced the second and last fortified stock- 
ade ever erected within the boundaries of that 
North Dakota county. The first being Fort Man- 
dan, erected at Elm Point, in November, 1804, by 
the Lewis and' Clark expedition, as winter quar- 
ters The buildings constructed by the wood- 
choppers at Tough Timber consisted of two large 
log shacks facing each other, with a horse stable 



A War Woman. 95 

at one side between the main biiildines, the whole 
enclosed with a picket of sharp pointed logs, 
placed upright. The stockade was located near 
the lower end of the timber amonor a scattering 
bunch of big- old cottonwoods and within one hun- 
dred yards of the river bank. 

About the first of December rumors reached 
the Missouri of an uprising of the half breeds and 
others in the present British province of Mani- 
toba, and a provisional government set in motion 
by the insurgents, with headquarters at Fort Gar- 
ry, a Hudson Bay fur company post, which they 
had captured. The insurrection grew out of some 
injustice done the resident half breeds by the 
officers of the home government of Ontario. It 
was charged by the Ontario authorities, however, 
that the whole trouble originated in the fertile 
brain of the Hon. Enos Stutsman, a U. S. custom 
house off.cer at Pembina, and for many years a 
member of the Dakota Territorial Legislature.^ — 
How true the charges were is not positively 
known, the principals now being dead, but it was 
admitted by those who ought to know, that the 
talented American drafted the Bill of Riofhts for 
the Provisional goverement, wrote their Constitu- 
tion, and was at all times during these s tiring 
days, an intimate advisor of General Louis Riel, 
the insurgent leader. 

With the wafting breeze that brought the first 
news of the Red River rebellion over to the Up- 
per Missouri country came also the rumor that 



96 Frontier anii Indian Like. 

John George Brown, of F"ort Steven.son, was 
commissioned to raise a force of hardy frontiers- 
men and come over at once to Gen(M*al Reil's 
assistance. 

Brown was an Irishman, married to a Crec half 
breed woman, and it was said he; had formerly 
been an officer in the British army. At the time 
of receivino- his commission from the insiiroeat 
leader, he was post interpretor at Fort Steven- 
son. An organization for the help of the half- 
breeds' Republic was attempted at points along 
the Mis.soLiri, but the vacillating conduct of the 
leaders in Manitoba, weakened the resolutions of 
those beyond the border, who wished them ready 
success. A "medicine lodge" for Reil's cause had 
been formed at the Tough Timber, where the long 
nights and isolation, demanded a stimulant for 
mental exercise, Wheeler, a frontiersman who 
had considerable experience was elecLed chief of 
the lodge, and the Deitrich brothers, chief's coun- 
cellors; Plopping Bill, head soldier, and the hum- 
ble scribe of these pages "keeper of the records." 

On New Year's day, 1870, two Aricaree hun- 
ters came to Tough Timber and asked to encamp 
within the gates of the stockade, as they claimed 
to have some fears that hostile Sioux were in the 
neighborhood. At the break of day next morning 
the writer was au^akened from sleep by screeches 
and sounds resembling an owl in distress. I lo- 
cated the sounds as along the river bank near 
where a trap was set for a wolf, and concluded 



A War AWjman. 97 

the meat bait had drew his owh^hip to a least, and 
was caught, so prepared to go and release it. 

The sounds had also awakened the Indians, 
who seeing me prepare to sally out, and divining 
my intentions. Red Shield jumped up excitedly 
and grasping my arm, said in pigeon English! 
^'Hol on, hoi on ! Sioux, Sioux, it's Sioux." And 
meantime motioning me to remain in doors. The 
two Indians jumped for their saddles and slinging 
diem on the poni«\s, asked me to unbar the gates 
and after passing out advising their instant closing 
mounted their ponies, passed along the trail 
through the timber to the prairie bluffs. It was 
undoubtedly the indistinctness of early dawn that 
gave the Aricarees the start, for we afterwards 
learned that a war party of Sioux had envested 
our stockade the whole night long for these two 
scalps, but did not discover their successful flight, 
until the morning light revealed them gliding 
swiftly along on the whitened prairie. And then 
commenced a silent chase, the Sioux wisely avoid- 
ing F"ort Stevenson, and making a detour to the 
left for this purpose, but crossing the river oppos- 
ite the bad lands midway between Forts Stevenson 
and Berthold. Meantime the two Aricaree hunt- 
ers rode into Fort Stevenson and rested several 
hours before resuming their journey to the village 
and Red Shields even then dallied along the trail 
and on entering the bad lands was confronted by 
a band of twenty-five Sioux warriors. After the 
first amazement was over. Red .Shield attempted a 



98 Frontier ani> Indian Lifk. 

a stand; was badly wounded, but tying himself on 
his pony the faithful beast brought him in safety to 
his lodge. Behind him like a band of panting 
wolves tireing down their prey, increasing in num- 
bers as they came on, until over two hundred 
Sioiix warriors bore down neck and neck on the 
surprised village at Fort Berthold. 

The Sioux had well calculated on the absence of 
the principal part of the village inhabitants; they 
being out in their usual hunting quarters several 
miles further up the river, and but little resistance 
could be expected to their determination to des- 
troy the helpless, little town. 

But Major Wainwright, the gallant and humane 
commandant of Fort Stevenson, had also made a 
calculation. A courier from P^ort Rice had alread)- 
apprised him of the expected war party, and that 
officer knowing the defenseless condition of the 
remaining Indians at the agency — being for the 
most j)art the aged and infirm — had sent up a part 
of a battery of artillery under charge of a good 
gunner, and the pieces were masked in an old dirt 
lodge, meeting the charging Sioux with a belch of 
grape and canister. This was so unexpected to 
the over-confident warriors that they were dazed, 
thrown in a panic, scattered, and fled across the 
river among the bluffs southeast of the village. 

On this same afternoon a meeting was held at 
the Tough Timber, by all that were congregated 
there at the time, over a deer roast with a big 
open fire and an animated discussion . concerning 



A War Woman. 99 

the propriety of an early spring expedition to help 
out General Reil against British domination in the 
great interior basin ol the Saskatchewan. The sub- 
ject Ijrought out an abundant display of camp fire 
rhetoric, but was quickly hushed by the sudden 
and rapid reverberating sounds of artillery firing 
that echo(xl and re-echoed along the bends and 
bluffs of the frozen river. Everybody at the 
council jumped to their feet, and it was at once 
surmised by the direction of the sounds, that a 
fight was going on near Fort Berthold, and that 
the use of artillery meant that the soldiers were 
taking a hand. We also concluded that Sioux 
defeat by soldier interference would prompt them 
in their hour of humiliation and rage, to attack the 
first outlying woodyard on their homeward path, 
and that, of course, would mean ours. All haste 
was thereupon made for vigorous defense of the 
stockade. 

An anxious night followed at the woodyard. — 
At daybreak I was detailed to take a walk around 
outside of the stockade, and after an hour's tire- 
some stalking, returned with the information that 
nothing unusual could be seen. But the report 
was hardly made before a vigorous thumping was 
heard at the outside gate, when everybody in the 
room jumped for their rifles. Johnny Deitrich, 
meantime cautiously peering through a porthole, 
whispered in seeming accents of alarm, ''A war 
woman." 

L.ofC. 



lOO Frontier and Indian Life. 

A war woman [ 

Shades of the blood-thirsty Stataans, of the 
forks of Platte river, where the war woman, hid- 
eously dressed and painted, rode beside the war- 
rior in every fray to hack and mutilate the dead ! 
War woman, long the sacred female of the Paw^- 
nees and Aricarees of other days — ^who led every 
forlorn hope or accompanied every enterprise of 
desperate danger, and stood "medicine" to every 
calamity ! War woman — the ghoul of the Lipians 
of the Mexican border, and blood drinking tiend 
of the Tontas of the desert ! Who amongst us 
at such a time and such a place wanted to see a 
war u^oman? 

Yet the ponderous gate was unbolted and its 
unwildy frame swung backward and the muffled 
figure moved within the enclosure. It was sure 
enough an Indian woman, and to all appearances 
was alone, though as a precautionary measure the 
gate was closed and bolted behind her, and she 
was bidden be seated by a warm fire iu the cook 
room; which invitation she accepted with a hesita- 
tino^, modest mien. She w^as ti^^litly wrapped in a 
long blanket of spotless white. Her age might 
have been about thirty yeai's, and the blue star 
tattoed on her forhead and cut of features told us 
without askinpf that she was of the Sioux nation. 
Being at this time the only one of the party with 
any knowledge of the Sioux language, 1 was com- 
missioned interpreter for the occasion, and asked 
her whither she was travelinor. 



A War Woman. ioi 

"Port Stevenson." she answered crisply. 

Then after some hesitation she told her story. 
She was of the Black foot band of the Sioux na- 
tion, and although nurtured and raised among her 
people she chose a husband among her tribe's 
herititary foes. During a temporary truce she 
visited her relatives at the Grand River agency 
As she came alone she was treated as a penitent. 
— restored to the love and confidence of those 
whom she once abandoned. 

While at the agency she learned o( the organiza- 
tion of a war party to revenge the disasters that 
had befallen Two Bears and his Yanktoneys at 
Heart river and the coulee of Four Bears, the past 
summer. The leadership was to be intrusted to 
young John Grass the oldest son of Chief Grass 
the honored head of the Blackfoot band. 

The expedition was being well and secretly 
planned. Nothing but an accident could save 
the predeierm.ined destruction of the Indian village 
at Fort Berthold and the wholesale slaughter of 
its inhabitants. 

Plain duty to her kith and kin demanded that 
she should remain in her lod^e and assist her sis- 
leis; prepare articles of comfort for the out going 
braves. But the promptings of her heart willed 
otherwise. She saw that her husband's people 
was in danger of annihilation. She would save 
him and them. To do this she must travel through 
deep crusted snow afoot and alone for upward of 
two hundred miles along the frozen bed of the 



102 Frontier and Inhtan Life, 

the Missouri. She had undertaken it and the 
journey had been a most trying one. The intense 
cold, the crusted sand bars; the danger at night 
from mountain lions and wolvt^, while camping in 
some cheerless willow patch, and a scanty supjjly 
of pemmican and corn, and even that being finall)'" 
exhausted and actual starvation averted by the 
timely find of a frozen buck deer in an air hole 
near Mandan lake, — were some of the perils with 
which she had been environed. All for her Aric- 
aree husband's sake. Her courage and iron in- 
durance heretofore so bravely kept up, utterly 
gave way at the mouth of Knife river, but an 
hour before her arrival at the stockade. Here,, 
while dragging herself slowly along, John Grass 
and his defeated war party of two hundred aime 
suddenly out to view from along the black hne of 
willows tliat markf^d the outlines of Knife river's 
icy bed. What could she do ? By Indian law 
discovery wonld be her death. But death had but. 
little terror now. Her mission, after all was a 
failure. It was snowing, and by rare presence 
of mind she sank quietly in the snow and envel- 
oped in her white blanket, the whole wai' party 
passed in review by her but a few hundred yards 
away without noting her prescence. 

Her concluding words were sorrowfully ren- 
dered: "I have but to go on to my husband's 
lodge now. I ca.n never again return to the 
Blackfeet." 

The morning following was intensely cold. The 



A War Woman. 103 

thermometer registering forty degrees below zero, 
with a fierce cutting wind blowing down from 
Arctic lands. The Sioux woman, already badly 
, frost-bitten in face, feet and hands on her misera- 
ble trip, would again hazard her life to inclement 
elements, for she determined to resume her jour- 
ney in search of her Aricaree brave. She had 
left him doing duty as military scout at Fort Ste- 
venson. As she neared that post on this January 
day, the wreathing columns of black smoke beck- 
ened her hopefully forward. The post sentry from 
his box hailed her as she passed by, but on recog- 
nition, was not delayed. Her pace quickened now; 
her frosted face reddened in feverish glow as she 
sped on. See, her husband's lodge is still at the 
old place, and she has sighted it; her heart-beats 
grow tremulous and fast. The door is reached — 
reached at last — poor women. With an expectant 
and joyful bound, she raises the door flaps and 
stood unannounced within. With one wild look 
no artist can imitate or imagination portray, she 
sank down on a mat of skins at the doorway. — 
Her husband was indeed there — but by his side 
sat — in seeming happy content, and wreathed in 
smiles— a younger and fairer female factr. 

In June, 1876, I took charge of Rhude's Turtle 
Creek Ranch, while its owner was sight-seeing^ 
across Minnesota's fair and flowery fields. One 
foggy morning about the first of the month, and 
just as the sun was rising, I heard a loud and dis- 



I04 Frontier and Indian Life. 

tinct Indian. It came from the high l)liiff just 
across the creek, and opposite the ranch a hun- 
dred yards away. On going to the door, to m)' 
dismay, nearly one hundred and fifty Indians were 
ranged along- the bluffs, mounted and sitting com- 
plaisantly in their saddles. One of these, in sten- 
torian tones, demanded of me in the Sioux tongue 
to know where the crossing place was and by this 
sign I kn(?w they were strangers. After passing 
around to the ford, they crossed and the whole 
crew came g-alloping" up around the ranch, when 
an oldish man dismounted, and advancing with 
arms folded— an unfriendly sign — saitl in the un- 
mistakable dialect of the Santees: 

"Do you know Little Mountain ?"" 

"Yes, I replied, "I know you. Little Moimtain, 
I mc;t 30U on the ridges of the upper White Karlh 
two years ago when you were leaving the buOalo 
grounds for yoiu* home in the lands of )'our white 
mother." 

"Land of my white mother," drawk^d out the 
chief in sarcastic tones, and after helping hin^self 
to a drink of water, remounted his horse and. 
with a wave of his hand signalled his command 
forward. One alone remained — a female — the 
only one I had noticed in the party. She sat as- 
tride her pony as motionless and expressionless, 
as a marbled nymph of the fountain. Her keen 
black eyes peered out towards me from bet ween 
the parting folds of her scarlet blanket, and therk 
after a steady gaze of two or three miuutes, threw^ 



A War Woman. 105 

back the hooded mask, saying as interpreted from 
her native Sioux: 

"Do you know me — do you remember me, say?" 

After a glance at her weather-beaten counten- 
ance for a minute or so, recognition of her came, 
though s(n'en years had passed since we last met 
and then an acquaintance of but a clay. I told 
her. finally, who I thought she was, and why. 

"You have nothing to fear from us here," she 
said quietly, emphasizing the last word and then 
rode out and rejoined her companions. 

While watching the war party ascending the 
l:)luffs, my thoughts again reverted to the chief. 
His words, "do you know Little Mountain were 
again recalled. Yes I knew of him, but under 
another name. I knew of him since that cold 
December day in 1857, when under the leader- 
ship of Inkpaduta, they destroyed the town of 
Spirit Lake, Iowa, and killed its inhabitants. I 
had heard of his cold hand and stony heart in the 
Minnesota Sioux outbreak of 1862; and when 
pressed by avenging troops, he fled with chief 
Little Six over to Fort Garry and claimed refuge 
and a home on British soil. But unlike his chief 
was not enveigled back to the American side to 
be strangled to death. 

Had I the eyes of futurity I could have seen 
more on that June morning. I could have seen 
this warrior band after leaving the bluffs of Turtle 
creek, head dirccdy for the Indian crossing at 



io6 Frontier and Indian Life. 

Upper Knife river; could have seen them, after 
crossing the Missouri river, take the high divide 
for the mouth of Powder river, thence up the Yel- 
lowstone valley across to the place of gathering 
hostile clans along the Little Big Horn; could 
have seen the impetuous charge of Custer and his 
men and the fierce fight that followed; could have 
seen in the immediate front of Custer's battalions 
the refugee Santees — outside of the Northern 
Cheyennes, or possibly the Ogallalla Tetons — 
the best deciplined and bravest troops in this In- 
dian army. I could have seen after the last of 
Custer's men had fallen — coming out from the 
ranks of these Santees, and gliding and striking 
like a hesitating serpent among the dead and 
dying soldiers, the most dreaded of horrors to the 
helplessly wounded on an Indian battlefield — an 
avenging red Nemesis — a war woman. 



^ 



SECOND GRODP. 




An Incident at Old Fort I'nion. 



EARLY DAYS AROUND FORT BUFORD. 

K3RT Buford was for many years the most 
noted military post along the Upper Missouri. 
The site was laid out and buildinp- commenced 
June 15th, 1866, on a high bench of tableland on 
the Missouri, and nearly opposite the mouth of the 
Yellowstone river. For a period reaching over 
thirty years, there had been established and doing 
a good business for its proprietors, an Indian 
trading post, located about three miles northwest 
of the new military post. 

The trading post was known as Fort Union, 
and was built from material after the Spanish- 
American fashion, — a composition of sun dried 
brick called, adobe. The first resident agent of 
the fur company at Fort Union, was a Scotch gen- 
tleman named Mackenzie. The year 1832, the 
noted painter and writer, George Catlin, made a 
several weeks' sta)' at this place and was hand- 
somely entertained by the hospitable Gael. The 
artist found exciting and romantic situations for 
pen and pencil. The scenes that he and other 
venturesome travelers describe around old Fort 
Union, prove that from the earliest information we 
have of that section, that it was a central fio-htincr 
ground for numerous warlike tribes. Being near 
the centre of the great northern buffalo range, 



loS Frontier AND Indian Life. 

the country thereabout was seldom devoid of in- 
habitants. A lone butte notheast of the present 
Fort Buford, a few miles, mark the site of the 
close of the adventurous career of this Scotch 
trader. He had been in the habit of riding- out for 
daily exercise, unmindful of the danq-ers that foe- 
set him. Dne of his favorite points was the butte 
that now bears his name. From its pinnacle a 
vast scope of country could be seen, and he took 
pleasure in watching the great herds of l)iifr;does 
that grazed upon the plains. His trips became 
marked by a band of scalp hunting red men. and 
one day was aml3ushed and slain while in the act 
of decending from his perch. 

It was here also, the chronicles of that epic (ell 
us, that by the frowning mud walls of this old 
trading post, another agent in charge lost his 
pretty half breed wife, by the aching heart and 
deft hands of a sturdy South Assinaboine braxe, 
who had been loitering around in front of the fort 
mounted upon a tractable charger. The petted 
wife was basking in the morning sun near the 
unguarded gateway, when she was suddenly seized 
by the brawny arms of the impc^tuous wooer, and 
lifted up and thrown across his saddle, and plung- 
ing his heels in his spirited pony's fianks was soon 
scurrying the prairies. The disconsolate husband 
and a few retainers followed out a short ways but 
gave up the chase. Whether the young bride 
was ever recoved by the trader the chronicles do 
not inform us, a missing link, as it were, in the old 



Early Days Around Fort Buford. 109 

adobe fort's history, but the most probable end of 
the romance was that it took prosaic form, that 
the prairie nurtured bride found congeniaHty in 
the tented hfe along- the Riviere Du Lac, with so 
galliant admirer for protector; while the trader's 
grief was seared over by the plentiful offers that 
mo\cd the red parents of pretty maids to place 
themselves in close alliance with the dispenser of 
bright calicoes, shining beads and other fineries 
that tempt the cupidity of the savage breast. 

Fort Buford was constructed for a garrison of 
four hundred men. The first commander, was 
Colonel Rankin, of the old Thirty-First regiment, 
U. S. Infantry, aiLcrward consolidated with the 
present Twenty-Second regiment, U. S. Infantry. 

After the massacre of the soldiers at Fort Phil 
Kearney, in December, 1866, large bodies of 
Sioux moved down the Yellowstone to the mouth 
of Powder river, where buffalo were more plenti- 
ful; and the Uncpapa branch of that nation were 
particularly hostile to the occupation of that sec- 
tion by the military. 

In January, 1067, Sitting Bull, then just rising 
to note among Black Moon's band of Uncpapas, 
headed a large war party and made a systematic 
investment of Fort Buford, encamping opposite 
the post in the timber at the junction of the two 
great rivers. On one occasion he sallied out with 
a force of warriors and captured the saw mill near 
the landing and vic^orously beat time on the huge 
circular sav.' as a drum, adding his own sonorious 



no Frontier AND IxMUAN Life. 

voice, while his yountr braves danced sprightly 
around on fast time, to the disgust of the bad 
gunners at the fort who vainly endeavored to turn 
a corner on their mirth by dropping around them 
whistling, fuseless shells. 

Several soldiers and citizens were killed by 
these Indians in the immediate vicinity of the post 
during the winter. In the four following years 
Fort Buford was virtually in a state of seige, twice 
losing their beef herds and other stock. 

During the close of haying season of 1867, the 
haymakers were undisturbed. Not a hostile In- 
dian had been seen. The hay parties were well 
armed and vigilant. But two loads remained to 
be hauled to close the contract. A young man 
named Roach and a colored man called Fom were 
assigned to bring these last hay loads up from the 
Little Muddy. "We will not bother with our 
guns this time," said Roach and they started off 
without them. The next day a search party found 
the hay loaded, the teams gone and the mangled 
bodies of the two hay haulers near by. They had 
been beaten to death with whiffle trees taken from 
one of their own wagons. Twenty one arrows 
was sticking in each corpse. 

In the early part of August, 1868, a war party 
of about seventy Indians attacked the herd below 
the fort, killed, two herders. Max Layman and 
Beal, and bounded Henderson, Cooper and Zook, 
all soldiers. The military from the fort under 
Lieutenant Cusickgave chase, captured one Indian 
and killed one and was himself severely wounded. 



Early Days Around Fort Buford. hi 

Onti of the most noted events durintr this 
period of the investment was the kilhng of Dugan, 
"Dutch" Adams, McLean, and the Itahan, Ranal- 
do. This took place about two miles from the 
fort on the Little Muddy hay trail, August loth, 
1869. These men liad just come down from Fort 
Peck, and were mere sojourners at Fort Buford, 
and were bound down to the contractor's first hay 
camp eight miles below. They had been asked by 
Moffit's party who were then at the post unload- 
ing their hay to remain and return down with them 
but ihey prefered not to wait, so pushed on down 
the trail, riding in a double seated spring wagon 
and a led horse. The Indians were in hiding in a 
deep water cut coulee, to the number of two hun- 
dred, and were completely hidden from view 
along the trail. The Indians were stripped for a 
fight, evidently laying in wait for Capt. Bob Mof- 
fit, and his outgoing hay train, when this party 
of four men appeared within their circle of am- 
bush. Over one hundred rifles sent their death 
messengers among the astounded group in the 
wagon box. All three horses were killed at the 
first fire, and some of the men wounded. They 
all jumped from the wagon and attempted a re- 
treat for cover. A few hundred yards to the left 
of the road the hunted men made a stand in a 
buffalo wallow, and in thirty minutes all four were 
dead. Renaldo, although dressed conspicuously 
in a gaudy red shirt was the last to fall, as evinced 
from his position when found. He died within 



112 Frontikr AND Indian Life. 

sieHt of the Hacr staff. The bodies w("re found an 
hour later by George Rhude and Isaac Howy, of 
Moffit's train, and taken to the mihtary post. — 
About the same time an attack was made on the 
camp at Painted Woods creek, but the Indians 
were repulsed without loss to the haymakers. The 
Indians engaged in this affair were from mixed 
bands of hostile Sioux, and their loss has never 
been definitely ascertained. One dead Indian, on- 
ly, was found on the line of the retreating braves. 

The summer months of 1870, opened at Fort 
Buford with the usual demonstrations from hostile 
Sioux. Yellowstone Kelly, a rt^ckless frontiers- 
man, and his companion Longhair SmiUi success- 
fully ran the gauntlet and supplied th(; garrison 
occasionally with fresh elk and deer mc^at from the 
Yellowstone. Kelly was reckoned a sort of a bor- 
der Sphinx, and had earned something of an Adam 
Poe reputation by killing two Sioux two years be- 
fore near Upper Knife river. He was carrying 
the Fort Buford mail; was attacked by these two 
Indians and he shot back. 

About the middle of June, a party of wood- 
haulers in the employ of the Government con- 
tractor while leasurly whacking their bull teams 
along the trail about two miles above the adobe 
walls of old F'ort Union, were horrified to see a 
body of Indians raise up from among the sage 
brush and open tire at short range. What made 
the teamsters situation more trying was that they 




V "~>f 



4 r ^w.^/\ 



! ^t<-«**; 



Yellowstone Kelly. 



Eart,v Days Around Fort Bttford. 113 

anticipatino no danger had foolishl}- shot away 
their ammunition alono- the road that mornine at 
prairie grouse, plover and targets, and had but Ht- 
tle left for a time of need. The startled teamsters 
broke for cover in a timbered ravine, while some 
mounted scouts ran back to Buford and alarmed 
the garrison. Meantime, after killing all the cat- 
tle in the train, the Indians turned their attention 
to the terrified bullwhackers holed in the ravine, 
and making a complete surround the exultant 
red men commenced to feather them with ar- 
rows and ivould have soon killed them all had not 
relief Irom the fort came at the opportune time. 
A call by the contractor for more citizens to 
help along the lagging work, found the writer and 
several others of the Fort Stevenson neighbor- 
hood, on their way to P'ort Buford, early in July 
of the same year. At the White Earth river we 
were joined by a band of disgusted wood choppers 
from a fortified woodyard at North Bend, and were 
caught up to by George Kiplin the half breed mail 
carrier and his rolicking partner, "Scotty" Rich- 
mond. If presentiment of coming shadows cast 
their spells over men and chain down their thoughts 
with impending revelation, such forewarning cer- 
tainly haunted spectre like the movements of the 
brave half breed on this trip. He was usually 
rash and reckless, verging the dare-devil order, 
but after joining oiu" crowd seemed very nervous 
and was continually expressing his fears that some- 
thing awful would overtake us before the journey's 



114 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

end. We run the Fort Buford gauntlet safely, hut 
Kiplin returned to Fort Berthold a corpse. 

Among the party of wood-choppers from thc^ 
North Bend, was a young man named Aldrich, 
commonly known along the river as "Teck" Aid- 
rich. He was about twenty years old, clear blue 
eyes, supple and graceful in his motions, tall and 
straight as an arrow. He wore his hair long — 
the conventional frontier style — and otherwise 
togged himself up in the prev^ailing fashion on the 
border. He was rather bashful in conversation, 
and seldom spoke out an opinion unless asked to 
do so, and yet he was the recognized leader of the 
party. He was a good marksman, a successful 
hunter, and although in a dangerous neighborhood 
usually hunted afoot and alone, packing his game 
into camp on his shoulders, lie became the uni- 
versal favorite of the whole party, and was voted 
the spokesman on our entry into the fort. On 
our arrival we scattered out to the different sta- 
tions, Teck becoming day guard for the wood con- 
tractor's camp at the mouth of the Yellowstone, 
nearly opposite the fort. Guards in these danger- 
ous and exposed places, were generally chosen for 
their good sound ears, quick eyesight, and also 
some reaard for their hunting qualities, as watch- 
ing around gives them opportunity to note the 
whereabouts of, and plentiful leasure the con- 
venience and time to kill and dress ihc-ir game, 
and thus keep the camp larder well supj)lied with 
fresh wild meat. 



Eart.v Days Around Fort Buford. 115 

The morning of the 25th of September, of that 
year, was clear and cahn; the sun arose serenely 
over the bluffs of the divide, and after a lingering 
fog slowly raised from the slow rolling waters of 
these two majestic streams, its rays sparkled and 
glistened on the heavy dew drops that covered 
the low valley and high plain. The heavy-leafed 
cottonwoods glinted in the sunlight with its au- 
tumn tinted shades of mixed yellow and green, 
looked soft and picturesque to an admiring eye. — 
The light saffron colored bluffs on the high divide, 
alone gave the mornino- view a sombre cast. 

It was on such a scene as this that Teck Aldrich 
looked, after having rolled from his blankets and 
stood on the river bank, gun in hand for his morn- 
ing's watch and hunt. The fort opposite, by a 
kind of mirage, rose high above the banks — its 
whitened walls and shining windows seeming more 
to optical illusion and the fantasy of imagination, 
the abode of disembodied spirits, rather than the 
unappreciated home of a lot of tough old soldiers 
in the flesh. 

Young Aldrich had been barbered of his long 
hair the day before, seemingly a fatal omen to 
many frontiermen; but with rifle to his shoulder 
he strode out through the cottonwood grove to 
the bullberry openings, adjoining the bluffs. He 
saw neither deer or elk, where on previous morn- 
ings he had met them in numbers. This alone 
should have made him pause and reflect; and he 
probably did, but the* camp would expect a fresh 



ii6 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

deer for breakfast, and one he must bring them. 

He had now advanced to the outside opening 
near the bluffs, when from the tall grass, and from 
the screen of bullberry and choke cherry bushes, 
rose fully two hundred hideously painted and yell- 
ing savages, each and all eager for his scalp. He 
did not run. He did not even turn his back; but 
sprang forward among his swiftly encircling foes, 
face to face — and though the odds were two hun- 
dred against one, commenced to pump his Win- 
chester, and at every crack of the rifle a painted 
form washed his face in the morning dew — five 
shots and five dead Indians; but on the sixth shot 
the plunger of his rifle became misplaced and with 
a dispairing cry he sprang forward with his gun as 
club, but his work was done. He was instantly 
hacked to pieces with tomahawks and knife point- 
ed war clubs. 

"I have helped to kill a great many white peo- 
ple along this river," said Red Shirt, an Uncpapa 
chief, while on a visit to Grennell's ranch near 
Strawberry island, in 1875, "but I never saw one 
fight so well or die so bravely as that boy at the 
mouth of the Yellowstone. 




Crow's Breast and Poor Wolf, 
Gros Ventre Chiefs. 



A WAR PARTY OF THREE. 

SOME time diirii>g- the latter part of July, 1870. 
while with the hay contractor's camp at Fort 
Buford, we moved up the river bottom to the 
springs, some twelve miles northwest of the post. 
The springs were in a large coulee shut up among 
the hills; and contained considerable p^rass, which 
our party soon converted into fine hay. One sul- 
try afternoon, while busy at work, some of the 
men were surprised at the sudden appearance of 
a mounted Indian, and who seemed no less sur- 
prised than they at coming so unexpectedly on a 
camp of white men at that place. All hands went 
and picked up their guns and surrounded the In- 
dian boy — for a boy he proved to be — and as many 
of the men already had considerable taste of the 
bitter of Indian hostility, they were not slow in 
bringing him to a "talk" concerning his business 
in these parts. He announced himself a Santee 
— which tribe by the way was in very bad repute 
at the time along the Upper Missouri. He said, 
furthermore his destination was Fort Buford where 
his band were then encamped. 

From the fact that the boy when first seen was 
heading directly away from the fort, and that some 
of the party who claimed to know, said there were 
no Santees encamped around the post up to that 



ii8 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

very morning rather prejudiced the minds of men 
who wanted but a small excuse for conscience 
sake to "rub out the Indian." 

While this examination was going on, being 
the regular night guard of the camp. I was awak- 
ened from my midday slumber by one of the day 
guards who said I was wanted as interpreter in 
the matter of a "corraled" hidian. Shaking off 
the blankets I arose, went out and greeted the 
confused and somewhat frightened boy kindly. — 
He was mounted upon a hne pony, though the an- 
imal was in a lather of sweat and seemed weary. 
The Indian boy had a Hawkins muzzle-loading 
rifle slime across in front of him and no clothino- 
on his person but a single breech cloth. Taken 
altogether, was a very suspicious looking outfit 
for a man of peaceful habits. My dialectic knowl- 
edge convinced me the lad was of some San tee 
band. Some of the party were for killing him out- 
right, but were shamed out of it by the calmer 
judgment of others. He was therefore allowed 
to depart which he did very quickly. My part- 
ing admonition to him to bear toward the fort so 
long as he was in sight of our party, or he might 
be followed up and killed. I half suspected he 
belonged to or was making his way to Standing 
Buffalo's band of San tees, vi'ho were then camped 
somewhere on Milk river. At any rate the young- 
warrior — if such he was — put in no appearance at 
Fort Buford, and except with a chronicle anteda- 
ting the scene at the spring — his fate is unknown. 



i\ Wai^l Pari y of Three. 119 

Two or three clays after the appearance and dis- 
appearance of the Santee boy, a paymaster and 
escort arrived at Fort Biiford from Fort Stevenson, 
who gave an account of an affair that fully ac- 
counted for the lost and terrified appearance of the 
Santee lad. The particulars of the affair was ful- 
ly discussed on iheir arri\al and from which I 
memorized die following: 

The escort was commanded by Major Dickey, 
of the 22nd U. S. Infantry, of Fort Stevenson. 
The command consisted of twenty men, and the 
first day out encamped near the Rising Waters, a 
small stream some twenty-five miles up the river 
trail from Ft. Berthold. While here encamped 
thev werf^ met by two mail riders comino- down 
from Fort Buford, Keplin and "Scotty" Richmond, 
two, of the most fearless of the frontier mail car- 
riers. While the parties were thus encamped at 
their nooning, three Indians were seen coming 
over the bluffs from the direction of the Fort Ber- 
thold agency, mounted and riding at full speed, 
but on seeing the military campers, shied the road 
and dashed toward some timbered ravines in the 
direction of the Slides, near the Missouri. Seeing 
die Indians making this, if not unfriendly, at least 
unacountable move. Major Dickey ordered up 
some soldiers and with Kiplin in the lead went 
after the fleeing Indians. 

George Kiplin, was one " of the decendents of 
the orienal Scotch founders of the famous Selkirk 
settlement on the Red River of the North. His 



I20 Fronttf.r AND Indian Life. 

mother was a Cree woman as were most of ihe 
Indian wives of the original Selkirk colony. Kip- 
lin was thoroughly conversant with many of the 
Indian languages contingent to that section of 
country. He was considered one of the most 
trustworthy mail carrier's on the northern plains. 

On this occasion, and at this critical time the 
mail carriers had secured possession of some bad 
whiskey and Kiplin was under influence when he 
led the charge. He was far in advance of the 
soldiers, but when the pursued reached the foot 
of a timbered ravine they reined up their panting 
ponies and awaited with evident unconcern the 
coming of Kiplin and the soldiers. 

"Who are you?" yelled Kiplin in Sioux to the 
Indians, as he rode up within good call, though 
he halted for reply and seemed evidently discom- 
fiied by the sublime nonchalance of the Indians. 

"I am Bad Hand, the Sisseton/' replied the 
self possessed warrior, and pointing his hand to 
his companions, added, "these are my friends. 
I see you are white soldiers. My people are good 
friends of the whites. Why do you pursue us?" 

"I have come to fight you," Kiplin said quickly. 

"Then fight it is !" cried the swarthy Sisseton, 
raising his gun to his face; with the word a rifle's 
report, and Kiplin dropped from his horse with a 
ball through his heart. The triumphant red then 
dismounted and rushing up to the dead man taking 
up his charged needle gun and belt of cartridges 
ran back to the shelter of the grove. 



A \\\\!-. PaKIVOL ThREK. 121 

About this time a large body of mounted In- 
dians was seen by the solders riding furiously to- 
ward them from over the brow of a line of bluffs, 
and the commander, knowing that his duty was to 
protect the paymaster, and fearing this incoming 
mass of men were a body of hostile savages with- 
drew with all haste toward camp. 

On closer range the Indians were discovered to 
be Gros Ventres and Mandans, and were in fren- 
zied pursuit of the very party holed in the ravine. 
A surround was at once made of the ^rove in 
which the fugitives were last seen to enter, and in 
which the unterrified Sissetons stood defiantly at 
bay. 

"We have come to kill you. Bad Hand," said 
Poor Wolf, the proud leader of the Gros Ventres. 
"You have been a very bad man; killed our peo- 
ple; stolen our horses. You do not deserve to 
live, therefore prepare to die." So saying a vol- 
ley was fired into the ravine. 

After a few minutes interval, the Sisseton brave 
spoke out from his covert, and thus replied to the 
Gros Ventre chief: 'You will kill us. You are 
hundreds in number, while I am alone. My com- 
rade is wounded and dying. But bear in mind my 
enemy. Bad Hand will not go alone to the Spirit 
land." 

With these words the talk ended, and all pre- 
pared for the close of the tragedy. Some one was 
needed to draw^ the fire from the Sisseton when 
the rest would rush in to his hiding place before 



122 Frontier ANi) Indian Life. 

he could reload — a very quick motion. hcM'iio- 
necessary, when the dead mail carrier's capluredi 
needle gun is remembered, A youno- Mandan 
was chosen for the ordeal — a fair faced boy whom 
the writer had often noticed around the Indian \'il 
lage at Fort Berthold. He was loaded dotvn with 
the mysteries of Indian superstition; war chains. 
were sung and then he was rubbed over b}' the 
priest of the Mandans. after which the p'oor 
doomed boy started for the timber covef'KTi"*! ''''■ ." 

A shot from the brush and the young '"Mrindai'k 
was dead. Two hundred shots from withofft^'^ncl 
Bad Hand is in his death throes. ««.ti^ 

The Santees were then scalped and the h(\nd of 
the brave Bad Hand was cut off to be aiKFlMi''i''iect 
in grand triumphal entry into their village. '" '- - ' ' ' 

"Where is the third Sisseton Santee," exclaimed 
the Gros Ventre chief, after a thorough search had 
been made of the premises, "we followed three 
thieves from our horse pastures!" ■ 

Where indeed was he ? I will answ^er. The 
father died that he might save his son. It was. 
three days after this event tliat the Indian boy had 
appeared at our hay camp above b^ort Buford, 





Lake of the Painted Woods in 1SG9. 



LSGEND OF THE PAINTED WOODS. 

THERE are two considerable bodies of timber 
along the connecting strips that follow the 
Upper Missouri's two thousand mile course, that 
while not particularly larger than other timber 
stretches along its devious line, yet were long 
marked by the red natives as points of hollowed 
interest in epochs of their tribel history but are 
were fast disappearing with time's unending evo- 
lutions. Each of these forests were but the pro- 
duct of the "made" lands of the ever changing 
river's course narrowed down to very limited 
space between two ever attending high walls 
whose crusts are of adamantine hardness. 

Each of these disconnected groups of forests 
had been known as Painted Woods and a space of 
nearly two hundred miles separted them. The 
upper line of timbered groves so named stretched 
for a space of several miles along the Missouri, 
between the mouths of the lower Little Muddy 
and the Yellowstone ri\'ers, and it seemed to have 
been known only by that name within the last 
hundred years, or thereabout. 

The lower, or Painted Woods proper, is situated 
along the Missouri river between the Square 
Buttes, in the present county of Oliver, and Tur- 
tle creek, in the county of McLean, North Dakota. 



124 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

The river bottom lands about the woods; die 
low bench lands of the ascending- plains; the high 
uplands and the ragged, rough looking buttes, are 
grouped in fantastic shapes that make the whole 
landscape pleasing to an artistic eye. 

To the south, the great domes of the kalcndos- 
copic Square Buttes stand out like mighty fort- 
resses, bold and impregnable looking as a Giberal- 
ter; gloomy and lonely as the Pyramids on Africa's 
sandy plain. 

To the west, the high ridged graceful beauty 
— the Antelope hills meet the vision; while to die 
north your eyes wander along the ciu'ved lines of 
the mighty Missouri to the great bend where sits 
in mirage halo, the showy little town of Washburn. 

To the east, high above the uneven prairies, and 
deep defiles — pinnacles and land points covered 
with stone — towers the frowning- buttes of the 
Yanktoney, whose exterior garp change readily 
with the seasons, and like a huge time clock that 
it is, heed the pas.sing hour if it does not record it. 

Along the northeastern border of the woods, 
half hidden among strips of forests of ash. willow 
and Cottonwood, lies the gourd shaped lake of the 
Painted Woods — the Broken Axe lake of the 
Sioux; the Medicine Lodge lake of the early 
day trapper, and a paradise for wild game. — 
Here among the thickets, and underneath the 
shades of spreading trees, the elk and the deer 
were seen in their wild natural beauty; here along 
the ever placid shores of th<" lake, the industrious 



Li CEND OF THE Painted Woods. 125 

beaver once bii ikied their houses in fancied security, 
hut in an evil hour drove to destruction by the 
rovino trapper, against whose arts the poor indus- 
trious and harmless dwellers of these shady re- 
treats, parried in points of sagacity — but parried 
in vain. 

Here, too, the brown bear, in his coat of cinna- 
mon hue, once luxuriated among the grape, the 
plum, and the toothsome bullberry, and found 
among the trunks of massive trees, a good pro- 
tection from hoary frosts and blizzardy blasts in 
his long winter nap. The wild buffalo of the 
plain, also, found the cooling shades and limpid 
waters a resting wallow, where with him and his 
kind a dozing summer's day was lost in the count 
of passing time. 

In the rememberance of the oldest fur trader or 
trapper of the northern plains, the Painted Woods 
had been known as the forbidden or neutral 
ground between the Sioux on the one hand and 
Mandans, Gros Ventres and Aricarees on the 
other. There had been exceptional short periods, 
w4ien by main strength of numbers or boldness, 
one side then the other occupied the land. But 
to meet here, was to fight here. The grusome 
legends about the shock of arms between these 
warlike savage men, when told by the venerable 
aboriginal keeper of the tribel records, would 
take the hypnotic mind of the listening guest 
through the fumt:;s of an after-supper smoke, to the 
dr(?amy hours of anoth(T day. 



126 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

The last encounter but one, took place in April, 
1869. Although the writer was not a witness of 
the affair, yet it fell to my lot to attend the last 
funeral rites of one of the slain. The particulars 
of the hostile meeting was as follows : A roving 
party of Mandans was suddenly beset by a war 
party of Two Kettle Sioux. After a few inter- 
change of shots, one of the Sioux warriors step- 
ped out to the front of the line facing his enemies 
asked in a loud voice, who dare meet him in sin- 
gle combat? "I," replied a young Mandan' "will 
meet you ?" and so saying rushed forward and at 
a twinkling shot down his antagonist. As the Man- 
dan was in the act of drawing his knife and reach- 
ing out to grasp his enemy's scalp-lock, the dying 
Sioux drei\^ his bow and sent its fatal shaft through 
the heart of his victorious foe. The surviving 
combatants, after an attempted renewal of strife, 
went their several ways and so ended the Indian 
"affair of honor" among the painted trees. 

One beautiful autumn day in 1872, after a 
weary morning's jog around the trap line, I lay 
down upon a grassy knoll near the shore of the 
beautiful lake, ruminating in silent thought and 
listlessly watching for the time; being, the myriads 
of wild fowl skimming lightly over the lake — 
seeming alike fearless of the hunter and the hawk , 

when I was startled by the hum of many voices. 

who on approaching proved to be a hunting parly 
of Mandans. After the usual fussy salutations 
that the wild Indians are prone to indulge in when 



LifiKM^ or HIE Painted W'oods. 127 

iheir numbers and humor justify hilariiy. They 
sat clown in the usual Indian fashion, in semi-circle 
form and liohtcd up the pipe and started it on its 
rounds of curling, fragrant smoke and brotherly 
00 od will. 

The leader of the party proved to be Scar Face, 
the young son of Red Buffalo Cow, head chief of 
the Mandans. This yf>ung fellow had always cul- 
tivated a sincere attachment for the whites, and I. 
on more than one occasion. relie4 on his good will 
to keep his meddlesome companions from pluck- 
ino- mv spare baggage on these lone fur hunting 
excursions. After the pipe had passed the rounds 
two or three times, and with the tobacco pouch 
placed by die side of its carrier, I asked my 
young Mandan friend if he could tell me why the 
Red people called there neighboring timber points 
the I'ainted Woods ? "Yes, Trapper replied the 
young chief, "and if you listen I will tell you." — 
My ears are open," I replied in Indian fashion, 
and after a short pause he told the following story: 
"Many long years ago, when the Mandan vil- 
lao-es were larpe and numerous, they occupied and 
were masters of all this section of country. The 
Sioux lived hundred of miles toward the land of 
the rising sun, but then as now, — wicked men, — 
came here to fight and kill our people and drive 
off our herds. We were strong then, and often 
brought the horrors of war to their own lodges. 
Once when the hearts of all sank heavy with 
the bloody turmoil, and under restless insecurity, 



128 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

a pipe of peace was sent forth unto all the warring 
bands north, to meet in a great peace council at 
this lake, then but a mere arm of the river. The 
Mandans assembled from their neighboring vil- 
lages. From the far north came the frost eared 
Assinaboines and their tandem trains of dogs; 
from the west came the black leg Anahaways, 
well dressed, haughty and silent. From the 
northwest came the plumed and painted Gros 
Ventres, and with them as guests rode the Qaily 
dressed Crows, with suspicious hearts and prying 
eyes. And from the south came up the Yank- 
toney with their cold stare and silent tongue, riding 
bands of stolen horses. Then last came the hid- 
den faced Sissetons who spoke only among them- 
selves. 

Our fathers as owners of the land were the in- 
tertainers, and received their guests with extended 
hands and good hearts. Buftaloes, elks, antelopes 
and deer were plentiful, and harvests of pump- 
kins, squashes, melons and corn were bountiful — 
the season of the tinted leaves had brought them 
clear balmy days, so that this grand comingling 
of these northern nations, was but a continuous 
spread of gormandizing feasts — an assemblage of 
joy and brotherly good will. 

Sometime during this happy state of affairs, the 
jealous eyes of some of the young Mandan war- 
riors detected the assidious attentions of a gay 
young Yanktoney, to the daughter of a Mandan 
chief. She was winsome and beautiful — the belle 



LiGEXi) OF inK Painted Woods. 129 

of all the villages, and many were the wooers who 
offered her their hearts and their hands only to be 
refused. And, now, that she seemed to encour- 
age the proff('red and profuse blandishments of 
the Yanktoney — a stranger and an enemy, — one 
who had, perhaps, embued his hands in the blood 
of their murdered relatives, troubled them sorely. 
They remonstrated without effect — they plead 
without favor. The girl quietly and determinedly 
prepared to quit ihe lodge of her father and the 
village of her good people, to follow the uncertain 
fortunes of he who had entranced the confiding 
h^^art and bewildered her mind. 

When all devices had failed to separate the lov- 
ers, the soldiers of the Mandan town of which the 
maid's father was chief, issued an edict, and exe- 
cuted it. They assembled at the midnight hour 
and slew the Yanktoney in his love's embrace. 

The murder was done. The war-whoop rang 
out through the darkness and was echoed and re- 
echoed from lodge to lodge and band to band, un- 
til all the camps were stirred up in a mighty up- 
roar. The comrades of the murdered lover were 
told in loud acclaim by the criers of the camp 
what had happened. After their inomentary daze 
was over the Yanktoneys strung their bows, drew 
their arrows from their quivers and gathered 
around the dead man's bier, where the mourning 
maiden kneeling m grief ; in abject woe, was cru- 
elly filled with arrows, and left her gasping in death. 
All then dispersed to wait for the light of day. 



130 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

With the licrht of morning came war — the sack 
of camps and villages — the lonely murders — the 
burning of forests of timber and the wide ranges 
of dry grass upon the plains — waste and want and 
gameless deserts, deep snow; all followed in train. 

The bodies of the murdered lovers ere the 
place was forsaken, were in custom of the tribe 
placed together in the branches of a mighty elm, 
near where we now sit. The tree withered and died. 
Its bark pealed from its trunk and became glazed 
and whitened like the bones o{ its exposed dead. 

b^or these many years the war has raged. We 
have no forgiveness to offer.' We ask for none. 
As years followed in war and we were drove west 
of yonder big river, the Sioux especially in winter 
made their war party rendesvous of attack here. 
They painted up before onslought, and in mere 
bravado counted their "coup" with artistic flourish 
in character upon the whitened body of the lover's 
tree. We in turn retaliated in kind, and carric^d 
the hieroglyphic art to a bunch of great cotton- 
woods that stood near by; hence. Painted Woods. 

"This my friend," he concluded "is the story 
from our fathers." 

When the young chief concluded, the war- 
riers remounted and filed past the old Indian grave 
yard, the tattered bicTs in numbers then still stand- 
ing, and near where the famous old elm had once 
stood. They here paused for a moment then trail- 
ing out of sight through the high bushes, left me in 
silent communion over the It^gend and the passing 
by of the narrator and his 1:>and, like shadows of 
an imperfect dream. 



THE LETTER IN CIPHER. 

FORT Stevenson was established in June, 1867, 
bcinor the last post built to complete the mil- 
itar)' chain between the Red River of the North 
and mouth of Yellowstone river. It was planned 
and constructed as a military post, there being no 
especial fears of hostile Indians, as the village of 
the Mandans, Gros Ventres and Aricarees, was 
but seventeen miles west of the post, and these 
were friendly to the Government, thereby making 
it uncomfortable for small bands of marauding 
Sioux, that usually infest the neighborhood of 
a military post built within the limits of their 
range, llius it was that the post graveyard never 
contained the name of but one soldier's last rest- 
ing place marked on the head board "killed by 
Indians." a familliar enough inscription on the 
tombstones at the burying grounds of the neigh- 
boring posts. 

To men brought up in thickly populated com- 
munities of the east with the advantages of so 
much diversity in their every-day life, a small post 
so isolated from the busy world as Fort Stevenson 
was, made lixing there very tedious and irksome 
to such, and consequently when a soldier was dis- 
charged from service, he usually took himself out 
of the country as soon thereafter as possible. — 



132 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

The unlucky gambler or the whiskey drinker^ 
often came out of the service on the wrong side 
of their final statements, and were therefore often 
compelled, by their necessitous condiiion, to 
either re-enlist or hunt work in some neighboring 
wood camp. 

Robert E , a good appearing, tidy and 

trusty soldier, was one of those who had unfort- 
unately contracted a love of whiskey somewhere 
in his eastern home, the taste for which, in his 
case, at least, frontier isolation could not eradicate. 
He came ou.t of the service at Fort Stevenson, 
June, 1869, with a good honest discharge, but a 
small purse, and sought employment in a wood- 
yard, but after blistering his hands over a small 
pile of wood for a few days, came back to the 
post and re-enlisted in his old company to do duty 
for Uncle Sam for another term of years. 

On the I ith day of June, 1S70, Carlos Reider, 
or Charley Reeder, as he was more commonly 
called, a German, and proprietor of a wo(>dyard at 
the Painted Woods, was killed at his place by one 
of his choppers, known by name as Johnny Buck- 
tail. (3n the same day Bucktail started with some 
witnesses of the affair, to Fort Stevenson and sur- 
rendered himself as a prisoner to the miliiary au- 
thorities at that place. Major Wainwright, tlie 
officer in command, immediat(;ly started out Dr. 
Mathews, the post surgeon, and a detail of men. 
to find Reeder and l)ury him, and take possession 
of his effects. The soldiers e^thered toijether all 



The Letter in Cipher. 133 

his portable property, including his teams and re- 
turned to the Fort, reported to the quartermaster 
and turned over the property to his care. 

Among the dead man's household trumpery was 
a small batch of old books and some correspon- 
dence, and with these the following letter in ci- 
pher, drafted from memory of original, but be- 
lieved to be substantially corrct : 

FoRi' Stevenson, Sep. 18, '69. 
Friend Charley — Paymaster here soon. Come. 
Bring big gun of poison. M. at o. p. Shave tails. 
Don't talk. Money plenty. When— 

Bob E 

Bucktail was tried for Reeder's murder before 
the U. S. court at Yankton the year following, and 
after a lengthy hearing was convicted of man- 
slaughter and sentenced to one year's imprison- 
ment in the Fort Madison, Iowa, penitentiary. 

The prisoner's side of the case had been ably 
defended by Bartlett Tripp, afterwards Dakota 
Territory's chief justice under the first Cleveland 
admistration, and under the second term, Amer- 
ica's ambassador to Austra. The prosecution in 
the case had been opened by the prosecuting at- 
torney Cowles, but who early turned it over 
to young Williams, a modest but aspiring bar- 
rister who here made his first public plea — an elo- 
quent and forcible one on behalf of justice to the 
memory of the friendless dead man. Attorney 
E. A. Williams later on served several terms in the 
terrttorial legislature; once speaker of the house, 



134 Frontter AND Indian Life. 

and after the northern half came Into the union a?; 
the State of North r3akota, he was one of the most 
useful and talented members of the constitutional 
convention, and was soon thereafter appointed 
Surveyor General of the new State by President 
Harrison. 

Major WainwnVht, of Fort Stevenson beino 
summoned before the court at Yankton as a wit- 
ness on the Bucktail trial, the command of that 
post devolved upon Major Dickey, the second of- 
ficer in rank. The new commander's first official 

act of any consequence was the arrest of E 

and his confinement in the guard house. The 
nervious officer thought he saw in this ciphered 
letter a key to a terrible conspiracy that had most 
providentially miscarried. In his interpretation of 

the missive, Reeder, with E and possibly 

others were in a conspiracy to intercept the pay- 
master on his regular cash distribution visit to the 
post, and rob him of the plethoric rolls of green- 
backs that he usually carried around with him on 
such occasions. The word "poison" he took in 
its literal sense and saw a narroi\^ escape of him- 
self and fellow officers and such of the garrison 
likely to be troublesome. That the conspiracy 
must have failed or thwarted from some unknown 
cause, or had been deferred to another time was 
made evident from the date of the letter, and the 
arrival and departure of the paymaster at the lime 
specified without accident or anything of a suspi- 
cious nature. The Major, as officer of the day. 



TiiF, Lettek in Cipher. 135 

had orievoiis trouble some time before with Ree- 
der about supplying his soldiers with whiskey, 
thereby causing- insubornation and trouble, and on 
one occasion had him arrested and shipped out of 
the country. 

E , on his part did not not deny the author- 
ship of the letter and his explanation was simple 
enoucrh to all who cared to crive it thought or who 
were cognizant of the facts, except the doughty 
Major in question. Reeder had been in the habit 
of trading with some of the bar keepers of the 
passing steamers for a cheap kind of whiskey for 
the soldiers, and E being one of best cus- 
tomers acted as a kind of a middleman in the 
transaction, for such of his companions who cared 
for the liquid and its attendant effects. "M. o. p." 
meant to meet at the old place, that being on the 
reservation limit at Snake creek. Newly en- 
listed soldiers were dubbed in post parlance 
"shave tails," in humorous take-off to the fact 
that all newly purchased mules by Government 
have their tails closely shaved. The two carriers 
who had brouoht Reeder the letter were new sol- 
dier recruits and he was so warned — as the sale 
of whiskey around a military post otherwise than 
what the regular sutler kept, was interdicted. — 
"Big gun" answered for a ten gallon keg, and 
"plenty money" to pay for it would come with the 
paymaster. 

Owing to the officers well known antipathy to 
Reeder, the soldier's arrest was at first looked 



T36 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

upon as a mere diversion in fav^or of the prisoner 
Biicktail's release at Yankton, but after events 
did not show it. The letter had been placed be- 
fore his honor Judge Brookings, the presiding 
functionary before whom the case was being tried, 
but was considered of no consequence and irrevi- 
lent to the case, merely showing up the murdered 
man in the light of a worthless character. 

Soon after these events the command at F"ort 
Stevenson was relieved by two other companies 
and with the prisioner E still confined with- 
out a hearing, they all moved to quarters else- 
where. 

Fort Sully is a handsomely constru.cted and 
beautifully located post. It was named after a 
noble old hero of the frontier, who figured so 
prominently on these northern plains after the 
Sioux war of Minnesota, in 1S62. The fort was 
established July 25th, 1866, and intended to be 
occupied by four companies of soldiers. It is 
built upon a high bench overlooking the meander- 
ings of the great river Missouri. From the wavy 
meadows of the Okabosia on the south to the dis- 
tant breaks of the bluffs along the Cheyenne rivers 
on the north and west; the whole landscape is en- 
chantinpf and weird. The summer breezes a.re 
ever blowing — gentle airy zephyrs we may call 
them in fine summer weather — that are ever fan- 
ning the cheeks of the weak and slrong — the just 
and the unjust — as indiscriminate in its distribu- 



TiiH Letier in Cii'iiEK. 137 

tion of favors as th(i great fiery orb of day 
himself. 

The month of Aug-ust 1872, was passing quiet- 
ly on at this delightful summer post. Indian 
troubles had long since ceased, and peace and 
quiet reigned on every hand. On one of these 
sdll August days of that year, a tall, gaunt spec- 
tre — a mere skeleton of a man — came hobblingf 
out of the south gates, leaning heavily upon his 
cane. Once outside where he could breathe the 
free air of heaven, he looked around about him in 
a vacant abstracted way, as though the bright 
sun, the clear sky and the hue landscape of the 
green fringed river had no charms for him — yet 
they seemed so new and so strange. His eyes 
were glassy and sunken and the pallor of hurry- 
ing death was branded on his brow. After staring 
around for a few moments in a helpless sort of a 
way, he sank heavily upon the ground in a dazed 
manner, and in utter languidness, as unable lon- 
ger to bear up with the burdens of attendant 
ills to his tired emaciated body. 

"Good morning Bob, how do you feel this morn- 
ing" said a pleasant faced soldier passing that 
way. 

"Oh, I am dying my dear boy, I am dying," 
feebly answered the the invalid, as he turned his 
e;yes in pensive sadness to the ground. 

This dying man — this physical wreck, — was 

Robert E who but two years before was 

the finest looking specimen of the physical soldier 



138 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

to be found in the garrison at Fort Stevenson. — 
Eighteen long and weary months chained with 
double irons to the oaken floor of the guard 
room; a punishment that the horrors of the soli- 
tary dungeon would be tame to^ or the enforced 
torture of a vermin infested bastile, commonplace. 
Eighteen months. I say, lying chained down on 
the broad of his back, in stress and pain, in hoarse 
supplications for a trial or for death. Would a 
kind God in his mercy now grant the one, as the 
madman in a Major's uniform had so long refused 
the other. 





i)ULL iiOA'l'. 



BULL BOATING THROUGH THE SIOUX 
COUNTRY, 

THERE are time*^ that a little foolishness sway 
our minds into actions which at another time 
would appear flighty and ridiculous. After the 
passing of many years, 1 think the inauguration 
and execution of a bull boat journey in 1871, was 
conceived at a period when the bump of foolish- 
ness within the phrenological chart developed into 
tumor-like proportions on the craniums of the pro- 
jectors of that voyage. 

Many of the frontiermens' dull hours or inactive 
spells, during the taunts and banters and accom- 
pany the breaks of listless conversation, often re- 
solve to do things, that they would gladly retract 
could they be permitted to do so, without subjecting 
themselves to.the ridicule of their quizzical com- 
panions — resolved acts of some foolhardy scheme 
that have neither justification or excuse. 

When Yellowstone Kelly and Stub Wilson, at 
their woodyard near Porcupine creek, in the fall of 
1 87 1, waked up one morning to find that twenty- 
five lodges of hostile Uncpapas were encamped 
uncomfortably near them, and finding their pres- 
ence undiscovered or unsuspected, discretion and 
good judgment should have aided these two men 
to keep quiet and shady for a day or two at least, 
inasmuch as the band were mere travelers and not 
seeking trouble. 



142 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

writing his book and courting the Princess Grass. 
Unfortunately, Belden was not at home, and before 
we landed, beady black eyes had been peering at 
us from the bushes and our uncouth "Padonee" 
appearance, and our bull boats so terrified them 
that the half breed family ran screaming Indian 
murder up through the brush, not even stopping 
at their houses, but evidently made for the Black- 
foot camp somewhere along the Moreau. 

Concluding it was best to move on, we drifted 
down river to the Swan lake bars and taking a 
narrow shore shoot, were dismayed to see at a 
point ahead of us what appeared to be about 
twenty Indians calmly awaiting our approach. We 
were anticipating something of this kind, believing 
that the scared half breeds at Martin's had alarmed 
Grass's camp, and thinking we were the advance 
of an Aricaree war party, were preparing to round 
us up. Nor was the illusion speedly dispelled as 
we drifted lazily along the sluggish eurrant. One 
of them in our sight made the blanket sig- 
nal to others, by us unseen. But like the waking 
from an unpleasant dream some of the dreaded 
warriors took flight in the air. They were turkey 
buzzards; had been regaling on a carcass, and the 
mirage that often occur at this season on the river 
had magnified them many fold in size. 

In the neighborhood of Devils island we rested 
on a beech on the west side of the river where the 
year previous we had witnessed, if not an unre- 
corded tragedy at least an unraveled mystery. 



Bull Boating Through the Sioux Country. 143 

A party of eleven of us was descending the 
river from Fort Buford under deputy marshal 
Galbrath as witnesses before the U. S. court at 
Yankton on the Reeder murder trial. While at 
the Grand river agency, the marshal was advised 
by the military of the escape of a deserter from 
that garrison taking with him a large white dog. 

We were eating dinner at this bar when we es-. 
pied across the river on the ridge of bluffs a man 
and dog answering the discription of the deserter. 
About one-mile below, also on the opposite side 
of the river and near a small grove of trees were 
about twenty lodges of Indians. It seemed the In- 
dians espied the man and dog, as four of them 
mounted their ponies, and with glistening rifles 
drawn from their covers started out toward him 
but owing to his high position, hidden from view. 
Four other Indians quickly followed in like man- 
ner. The first four ran up a coulee beyond and 
the last four up a coulee in front of him, but all as 
yet were hidden from his sight. The four behinci 
arose first but he espied them and ran only to be 
confronted by the other four, when apparently dis- 
mayed he gave up and was hustled out of our sight 
in a coulee. The marshal refused to allow us to 
go to the man's assistance. Some of the Indians' 
ponies were in sight, unsaddled and grazing, but 
that was all. An hour later we passed on. The 
agency people reported these twenty lodges, "bad 
Indians." The deserter and dog were never again 
heard from. 



144 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

But to the bull boat journey. Within a few 
miles of the Cheyenne agency, on the east side of 
the river we noticed a large party of red people 
huddled together and evidently engaged in dan- 
cing. We were out in the river and thought to 
slip by unnoticed. But that was not our luck. — 
The dancing stopped and excited appearing In- 
dians gathered along shore and a fusilade of bullets 
whistled about our heads. We hoisted a white 
flag and was called ashore. Our poor boats were 
unmerciful thumped and kicked and the ominious 
words "seechee wah-doc-a," (bad to look at) rang 
in our ears in full some warning. San tee Jim of 
the party whom I had previously known, interce- 
ded to save us from further molestation, but give 
warning that riding in the bull boats meant break- 
ers ahead for us. 

When we came near the Cheyenne agency we 
changed our paddling methods; fixed the boats in 
line, kept the middle of the river, and so avoided 
the lynx eyed Indians of that place. Fort Sully 
we passed in the night, and about midnight land- 
ed at a hay camp on the Okabosia about ten miles 
below the military post. A flickering light at the 
camp had been our beacon for several miles of 
rough and dangerous riding through a boasterous 
sea. We found all asleep, so quietly carried our 
boats up near the fire; turned them bottom side 
up and went to sleep. 

At daylight we were awakened by slampinq^ feet 
and found ourselves and belongings subjects for 



Bull Boating Through the Sioux Country. 145 

inspection, and the inquirers were holding con- 
versation in an undertone. Presently a lank meat 
eating Texan drawled out to us, at the same time 
eyeing suspiciously the war vessles of the fighting 
Aricarees: 

"What is these things — a balloon ?" 

We arose fi'om under our skin canopies and 
proceded to explain to the unsophisticated young 
man and his stareing companions that the vessels 
were of the water not of the air. They could not 
be made to believe that navigation was possible 
in a skin covered basket until we went spinning 
around in the circling currant after launching. 

Our next stopping point was Tompkin's ranch at 
Medicine creek. The proprietor was affable and 
obliging and we do not think he deserved his hard 
luck a year later, viz: the confiscation and burn- 
ing of his property, and can but speak a good 
word for this generous Georgian who gave up his 
life trying to save another from harm. 

From Tompkin's place we hired a rig to take 
us overland to Port Thompson, abandoning the 
boats; partly owing to the tediousness of this kind 
of navigation, and partly owing to a false rumor 
reaching the Two Kettle band at Fort Thompson, 
that a war party of their old enemies the Aricarees 
were swooping down upon them in bull boats. 

We camped near that fort the night follow- 
ing, and owing to some one informing the Indians 
that we were the advance of the war party; having 
cached our boats near Tompkin's ranch, a big well 



146 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

armed party came out to interview us. A half 
breed questioned adroitly in English and some of 
the warriors catechised us in Sioux. Finally a lit- 
tle old black looking Indian asked us some ques- 
tions in Aricaree and I answered in the same lan- 
guage. That settled it. Twenty warriors armed 
with knife pointed war clubs stamped about us 
while we vainly tried to slumber. Nor was se- 
curity ours until two days later when we crossed 
Choteau creek on the south line of the Yanktons. 

One month later after the events just recorded, 
being the last day of the month of August — as 
passengers on the boat Peninah, we steamed up 
to the landing at Grand river agency about night- 
fall. Charley and John McCarthy, young Sam 
Galpin and one other came aboard as was the cus- 
tom at wood landings. ' They had just returned 
as pall bearers from the new graveyard, where all 
that was mortal of the young and talented George 
P. Belden, had been laid t-o rest. Three days be- 
fore the * 'White Chief" left the agency astride his 
mule bearing silks and fineries for his accept- 
ed bride, the Princess Grass, who resided with her 
father along the banks of the timber-lined Moreau. 
He was followed from the agency by a jealous red 
rival, who watched his opportunity and murdered 
Belden while in the act of drinking from a spring 
on the lonely Moreau trail, twelve miles from the 
agency. These pall bearers have now, also passed 
away — and two of their graves, will remain to us 
unknown until Gabriel blows his last and final call. 




Chaeles Reynolds, [Lonesome Charley] Cus- 
ter's Chief Scout at the Little Big Horn. 



LONSSOMS CHARLEY. 

ONE day m the early siipimer of 1870, there 
appeared at the lower,; ^.y^inted Woods, of 
the then Territory of Dakota, a young man about 
tweniy-four years of age, swinging a Sharp's 44 
calibre. So grains charge, rifle over his shoulder 
and leading a pony in pack. He unostentiously 
gave his name as Charley Reynolds, and his occu- 
pation that o( a professional huntsman. 

This young man was about five feet eight inch- 
es in sLature; heavy set and somewhat round- 
shouldered; a pair of keen grey eyes, habituated 
to a restless penetrating look; with rather unso- 
ciable, non communicative habit. His voice was 
soft in mode of expression — almost feminine — and 
what was very uiuisiial among rovers of the bor- 
der, used no tobacco in any form; nor was he ever 
seen by his companions under the influence of in- 
toxicating drink. Such were the writer's first im- 
pressions on the personal appearance, and first 
acquaintance with this noted froqtie^, wanderer. 

He had passed the previous VYgiter around the 
okl Grand river agency, and,at Gayton's ranch on 
the c^ast bank of the MissouritHver, nearly oppos- 
ite the Standing Rock. Ini!j|,h^^early spring he 
moved up near Fort Rice and^^^l^ye there first 
displayed his remarkable gifts as a''''hunter ' that 
made him so much after notoriety along the Up- 
per Missouri country. 



148 Frontier and Indian Life. 

He contracted with the post commissary to supply 
the garrison of F'ort Rice with all fresh wild 
meat needed at the post. His fame as a success- 
ful hunter spreading up the river, the officers of 
Fort Stevenson also requested him to furnish that 
post in like manner. He associated himself with 
Joseph Deitrich, afterward a well known business 
man of North Dakota's capital city. Por about 
two years these pre-eminently successful hunters 
made the neutral range between the Sioux and the 
allied tribes around Fort Berthold, their hunting 
grounds. 

It was while hunting in the Painted Woods re- 
gion that "Reynold's luck" became a word of 
whispered familiarity among envious hunters, and 
various studied explanations were indulged in 
by disappointed nimrods who could — many of 
them at least— explain their own disappointment, 
as being game stalkers decidedly out of luck. 

Reynolds intuitive knowledge of the habits of 
wild animals such as the elk, antelope and deer, 
was, indeed marvelous, and could have only 
been gained by a very close study of these animals 
habits. In the writer's presence he would often 
say that he would kill a deer or elk feeding at a 
certain place on a certain kind of herb or vine at 
a certain hour of the day, and would almost in- 
variably return from the hunt with a token of the 
accomplishment of his promise. 

The large amount of game killed by the soli- 
tary rifle of this extraordinary hunter, brought or 



LoNF.soME Charley. 149 

sent to the military forts became a subject of much 
discussion amr»no the neicrhborinsf Indian tribes, 
who to a certain extent depended for food upon 
the very game Reynolds was slaughtering. The 
feeling particularly grew upon the Indians of 
the Fort Berthold agency, many of whom were 
themselves good hunters, but Reynolds so far 
eclipsed them, that they believed he had as an as- 
sistant some strange supernatural power they term 
in a general way "medicine." 

On one occasion while visiting at the Fort Ber- 
thold Indian agency, he leasurely and unconcern- 
edly took his gun on his shoulder and walked down 
among the willows along the river about one mile 
from the village. In less than an hour he returned 
with the carcasses of two deer. This incident, to 
the wondering Indians savored of the same feel- 
ing, to their excited imagination, that the strange 
doings of a Signor Blitz, or Wyman the Wizard 
of the North, had. with their jugglary tricks im- 
pressed intelligent, brain-cultured audiences of 
our own race; the Indians had never seen a deer, 
or track of a deer even, for years past among the 
willows where the magic hunter had brought forth 
these two deer, nor would they believe the thing 
possible until a party of them went to the spot to 
see if such deer made tracks in the sand like other 
deer or were they but ghostly visitations; the pro- 
duct of the sorcerer. 

The climax to the Indian's patience and fore- 
bearance was finally exhausted in the matter during 



150 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

the winter of 1874, when the hunter Reynolds 
started out from Fort Berthold for an elk hunt 
along the Little Missouri river, taking as compan- 
ion for the trip, Peter Buchaump, the Second, a 
young half breed Aricaree. At the mouth 'of 
Cherry creek they came upon a herd of eight elk. 
when as was his wont, Reynolds killed them all 
without hardly changing his position. After dress- 
ing them they loaded as much on the wagon as. it 
would hold, and then cacheing the balance from 
the depredations of wolves and coyotes, they re- 
turned to the agency. 

Now, Buchaump, was a pretty intelligent half 
breed, and while in many ways as superstitious as 
a full blood, he at times felt disposed to play on 
the Indians' credulity. While knowing thes(; In- 
dians wonderment at Reynolds' strange gifts as a 
hunter, and himself half believinfr that the hunter 
carried some ma^ic charm, so when ctihtuIous Pete 
entered the village he had a wonderful story to 
tell to the gaping crowd of interested listeners. — 
He related various strange capers of the White 
Hunter That Never Goes Out For Nothing, — for 
such was the name Reynolds had received from the 
red people of the village. Buchaump detailed 
to the Indians the story of finding of the tracks 
of a band of elk at Little Missouri, and that as 
soon as Reynolds assured himself that the trail 
was fresh, he took from a hidden pocket a Hack 
bottle and poured out some of the contents along 
the trail and then sat down on a loo for an hour 



LoNFSOME Charley. 151 

or so when every elk returned in its own tracks 
and Reynolds had nothino- further to do but shoot 
and butcher. As might have been expected Bu- 
chaumps story roused the jealous, famine-haunted 
Indians to a pitch of superstitious fury. Reynolds, 
all unconscious of the gathering storm was quietly 
taking his ease at his boarding house — Trader 
Malnorie's place. The veteran trader all at once 
found his premises surrounded by about two hun 
dred Gros Ventres, who, as the elk were killed on 
lands which they laid claim as Gros Ventre terri- 
tory, and consequently the grievance in question 
was their own. Cherry-in-the-mouth, the Kidney, 
and other leaders of the Gros Ventre soldier band 
led the warriors. Many of the agency employees 
noting the excitement and fearing the outcome, 
had hustled themselves over to P^ort Berthold, 
and barred the gates. Malnorie, terribly excited, 
attempted to peacify the yelling mob of reds but 
failed. They demanded that Reynolds give up 
the black bottle — that source of all mischief — the 
cause of rapid decimation of the wild game; or in 
the event of refusal, the alternative was death. — 
Throueh the intercession of Malnorie and some 
of the chiefs their demands were modified. They 
would give the best mule in camp for that black 
bottle, and again the hunter denied possession. — 
Once more they became angered, and some of 
them drew their knives and made a rush for the 
hunter's team, which was standing hitched near by, 
with evident intention of cutting the horses throats. 



152 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

Reynolds quickly leveled his gun at the at the 
formost, saying to Malnorie at the same time: — 
"Tell them the first one touches a horse dies !" 
The aim of the dreaded riHe had its effect, though 
it has been said Cherry-in-the mouth and Kidney 
pulled Reynolds' mustache in the melee. 

As the Aricarees had remained passive during 
the fracas the hunter made them a free gift of two 
of the elk carcasses, but to the Gros Ventres he 
gave not a pound. The discomfited reds then gave 
out that the would "hx" the hunter on his return 
trip to the cache, and although he started out 
alone, and was followed the entire day at a safe 
distance byeight redoubtable warriors, a glimpse 
of fresh Sioux "sign" saved him from further 
molestation on that trip. 

Charles Reynolds was born in Warren County, 
Illinois, in 1844. His parents were both Kentuck- 
ians, the father, Dr. Reynolds, was a physician of 
extensive practice, and was a man of fine menial 
attainments. The family then consisting of pa- 
rents and seven children, moved to Coles County 
of the same State, in the spring of 1854, where 
Charley remained until he was about sixu^en years 
of age, when he left home and made; his way to 
Atchison, Kansas, and joined an emigranl outfit- 
ting train for California, but ihe party being at- 
tacked on I'ole creek near the forks of the Platte 
river, where several of the party were killed by 
Indians and their stock tiriven off. This misfor- 



LoMsoME Charley. 153 

tune necossitated a return down the trail toward 
Fort Kearney. In the meantime young Reynolds 
formed the acquaintance of an old wolfer named 
Green, who had quarters on one of the islands of 
Plaue river. One of the boys first experience 
with the cranky old fellow, and which did not add 
to his admiration, was on the occasion of a friend- 
ly visit from a band of Skedee or Wolf Pawnees. 
Passing that way, they did not forgo their usual 
custom of calling and asking for something to eat. 
Nor did the old fellow forgo his usual custom of 
appearing pleased at their presence when he was 
not. The genial appearing host ordered young 
Reynolds to manufacture a corn pome and when 
worked to its proper consistency, the wolfer then 
took the dough, and when not observed by the 
hungry Pawnees seasoned with a full bottle of 
str)'chnine poison and then put to bake in the 
"dutch" oven. After the bread was cooked it was 
spread before the red guests, who ate of it cheerily 
and heartily, and wh(;n the repast was finished, 
they all arose, shook hands with their intertainers 
and departed. The old chap's ignorance alone 
preventing a cowardly and uncalled for murder of 
several friendly Indians. The heat in the oven, 
of course, neutralizing the poisonous effect of the 
drug. 

Some time after this affair they pulled freight 
and moved out to the Middle Park, Colorado, 
where the wolfer's apprentice was treated to an- 
other su.rprise. While out hunting one day they 



154 Frontier AND Indtan Life. 

came to where an Indian woman — presumedly a 
White river Ute — was buried in a tree top. The 
old reprobate shook her down on the ground and 
set a line of wolf traps about the corpse. This 
incident was more than the boy could well stand 
and thinking that perhaps during another shortage 
of wolf bait, might find his own body in demand, 
he took his traps and with a morning twilight lined 
the direction of Fort Laramie, thence down the 
Platte river to the towns on the Missouri. 

At the breaking out of the war young Reynolds 
enlisted in the i6th Kansas — a noted regiment, 
and served in the first three years of the war in 
the various campaigns in which his regiment was 
engaged along the southwestern border. The 
greater part of this time the young soldier was de- 
tailed on scouting service. 

In the autumn of 1865, in company with a man 
named Wamsley, Reynolds started out on a tra- 
ding trip to the plains in southwestern Kansas. — 
At some place on Rabbits Ear creek, near the old 
Smoky Hill overland trail, they were jumped by a 
band of southern Cheyennes. In the fight that 
followed, Wamsley was killed and the wagon and 
goods captured. Reynolds saved himself by a de- 
termined resistance from an old abandoned wolf- 
ers dug-out until night set in, when with the help 
of intense darkness he crawled past the cordon of 
watchers, and taking a westernly direclion made 
his way to Trinidad, thence down to .Santa Fee, 
New M(;xico's capital city. 



Lonesome Ciiaklev. 155 

While wintering- at Santa Fee. he fell in love 
with and marri^^d a Mexican girl. But after a sea- 
son of wedded bliss, the terror of all dreamy 
young married men when favored with one — the 
ever critical mother-in law — who guards her daugh- 
ter's desdny with the same solicitude and care 
within the humble walls of a Mexican Greaser's 
adobe ranch, as well as in the stately homes of the 
fair Aryan. The old lady harried the young man 
for his want of thrift, and his matrimonial pros- 
pects had such an uncertain outlook, that he bid 
farewell to wife, mother-in-law, and the prolific 
land of Spanish half breeds, and made his way 
back across the plains. 

The autumn of 1866, found Reynolds hunting 
buffalo on the upper branches of the Republican 
river. The country about the Republican river, 
being also the favorite hunting grounds of many 
of the tribes of the plains particulary those hostile 
to white occupation of the country, and conse- 
quently after several "close calls," he concluded 
the profits would not justify the risk and exposure 
incident to such lonely camp life, so he crossed 
over to the noted Jack Morrow's ranch on Platte 
river. Here he remained for the winter, but in 
the spring he had some trouble with an officer of 
the neighboring post. Fort MePherson, which end- 
ed in a shooting scrap, the military man losing an 
arm. 

In the summer of 1S72, an expedition left Fort 
Rice on the Missouri, to protect the North Pacific 



156 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

railroad surveyors in running their line along the 
Yellowstone valley. Reynolds accompanied the 
expedition as scout and hunter. Two English 
nobleman also accompanied the expedition to see 
something of wild Indians and buffalo. They saw 
plenty of both, and when out to the furthermost 
limit of the summer's survey. General Stanley 
detailed Reynolds to accompany and guide the 
English bloods through the Yellowstont; National 
Park, and thence to Boseman, Montana. Rey- 
nolds acquitted himself in a creditable and satis- 
factory manner, and was very favorably mentioned 
by them in their book, which th(iy published on 
their return to England. 

In the early summer of 1874, General Custer 
received permission from the Government to lead 
an expedition to the Black Hills of Dakota, and 
selected Reynolds as his chief scout and guide of 
the expedition. This was the most important mil- 
itary reconnossance into the Sioux country yet 
undertaken. 

After Custer and his men had entered the Hills 
and gold was foimd, it became necessary to com- 
municate the important news swiftly to the world. 
While the Indians had not attacked the soldiers, 
it was known they were very watchful and wait- 
ing a favorable opportunity to strike a blow at a 
body of invading trespassers that threatened such 
consequences to the future of the Sioux nation. 

As the General wished to send the dispatch at 
once, yet knowing the great danger attending the 



LoM-soMK Charley. 157 

carrying of it, he wished volunteers, rather than 
be compelled to detail an)^ one on what he him- 
self believed was to almost certain death. After 
the miners had made their report, the General 
stepped out in front of the command and asked 
who among" them would volunteer to carry the 
dispatch to Fort Laramie ? As no one among 
them seemed in a hurry to answer, Reynolds, who 
was sitting on a log near by said in his quiet way: 

"General, I will go !" 

"No, Charley," replied Custer, "I can hardly 
ask you to go." 

"Give me the dispatch," Reynolds said in his 
hrm quiet way, "and I will carry it to Ft. Laramie. 

Seeing he had decided to go the General offered 
to detail some scouts or soldiers to accompany 
him, but the intrepid scout refused any company 
and after being furnished the best horse in the 
command for the journey, he waited around camp 
until dark, when with the guidance of the over- 
hanging stars he commenced his pathless and per- 
ilous journey of nearly two hundred miles through 
a country of vigilant and unsparing foes. 

After an all nights hard ride he drew into a 
deep coulee, unsaddled his horse and rested un- 
til nightfall before resumincr his ride. It seemed 
he had been resting near a camp of Sioux or 
Cheyennes, because on starting out in the even- 
ing he passed two pardes but "played Indian" so 
successfully, his identity was not discovered. 

Toward the peep of day on the second night 



158 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

he rode up Laramie's aates, and very soon there- 
after the civiHzed world was informed by electrical 
bolts that gold was found among the Black Hills» 
"even to the grass roots" and with that dispatch 
came the evening's lengthing shadow that marked 
the closing of wild Indian life on the great north- 
western plains. 

An incident happened in the winter of 1S74-5 
which owing to its shaping of after events is well 
worth noting. This was Reynold's part in the 
detection of Rain-in-the Face, and his subsequent 
capture by Captain Tom Custer, and imprison- 
ment at Fort Abraham Lincoln. 

General Custer's expedition of 1873, to protect 
the Northern Pacific railroad surveyors, which 
Reynolds had also accompanied as scout and hunt- 
er, was harrassed along their line of march by 
Sioux war parties, and on one occasion two non- 
combattants were killed while being temporarily 
separated from the command. They were Dr. 
Holzenger, the veterinary surgeon, and Mr. Bal- 
ran, the sutler of the 7th U. S. cavalry, lliey 
were elderly gentleman of scientific tastes, and 
were searching for fossils, in which the country 
abounded. Just before being attacked, Reynolds, 
had met them and warned both of them that he 
had discovered fresh sions of Indians around 
in that vicinily, and advised them to return to the 
command at once. They delayed, so lost th(Mr 
lives. 

During the early part of the winter f )llowing 



Lonesome Charley. 159 

Reynolds was sent down by General Custer, on 
a spying trip; and in attending one of the war 
dances, learned from some educated half breeds 
also present, that young Rain-in-the-Face, brother 
of an Uncpapa chief was boasting of killing with 
his own hands, the two civilians of Custer's expe- 
dition. On learning further particulars, he sent 
word to General Custer who at once ordered Cap- 
tain Tom. Custer with a squadron of cavalry to 
arrest the red brae^rn-i't and brine him to Fort Lin- 
con. Rain-in-the-Face, after some trouble was 
apprehended and taken up to the Fort and con- 
fined in the guard house until he escaped in April, 
1875, v\'hen he made his way to the hostile camps 
along the Yellowstone river. 

In the spring of 1S75, our hero acted as chief 
scout for the protection of the first steamboat that 
ever ascended the Yellowstone river any distance. 
This was the fine stern-wheeler, Josephene, of the 
Coulson line, under command of Captain Grant 
Marsh, one of the most skilful pilots as well as 
popular captains that strode the upper deck dur- 
ing the days of steamboat supremacy along the 
Missouri. The boat ascended the stream as 
high up as the mouth of Big Horn river where a 
large camp of Crow Indians were met with. Rey- 
nolds had three assistants, one of them being the 
noted borderman, George Grennell. The whole 
command was under Col. Forsythe, of General 
Sheridan's staff. This military reconnoissance by 
land and water was eminently successful judging 
by the events that immediately followed. 



t6o Frontier and Iindian Life. 

During the winter of 1875-6, Reynolds was s(Mit 
by General Custer to watch the movements of the 
Mandans, Gros Ventres and Aricarees, and par- 
ticularly to keep an eye on the going and coming 
of Sioux spies from the hostile camps along the 
Yellowstone and the Big Horn mountain country. 

Early in the spring of 1876, General Custer 
tendered Reynolds the position of chief guide for 
the contemplated expedition to the upper branches 
of the Yellowstone. The object of this expedi- 
tion was plainly set forth by the Secretary of the 
Interior which was to compel all Indians to move 
upon reservations set apart for them. Through 
Reynolds influence with Custer, the writer of 
these sketches was tendered the position of assis- 
tant guide and Reynolds visited the Turtle Valley 
Ranch where I was then stopping. Holding some 
regard for the just rights of the Indians in the 
premises, and fearing a repetition of Chivington's 
work at Sand creek, or of Baker's butchery of the 
Piegan small pox victims in Montana; or that of 
the General himself in the destruction of Black 
Kettle's camp of southern Cheyennes, the flatter- 
ing offer was respectfully declined. 

In this interview at Turtle valley — which so far 
as we two were concerned was destined to be our 
last — he said while Custer and his officers were of 
the opinion, basing it upon the attitude of these 
Indians during the invasion of their hunting 
grounds about the Black Hills and the various 
taunting military reconnoissances made from time 



Lonesome Cmarley. i6i 

to time in the Sioux country, that these refractory 
Sioux under Sitting- Bull and Crazy Horse would 
not make much disturbance or resistance when 
confronted by the military power. 

Reynolds seemed of a different opinion. He 
had been makino- observations, he said, and he 
believed the Sioux would fight, and fight harci. 
He had noticed them quietly preparing for a long 
time— supplying themselves with plenty of amu- 
nition and the best of Winchester rifles, and every 
move they were making meant fight, and while he 
did not believe the Sioux had the dashing courage 
of a Cheyenne or the stubborness of a Modoc, 
yet there was fight in them, and they would show 
it at the proper time. They expected to fight and 
he thought that summer would witness the great- 
est Indian battle ever fought upon this continent. 

The event of June 25th, of that year marked 
the chief guide's prophecy as being nearly correct. 

While General Custer had been makine some 
preparation for nearly a year for this expedition, 
and very active preparations since the month of 
January, a break occurred between President Grant 
and the General over other matters, and the Pres- 
ident carried his resentment so far as to have this 
eminently qualified officer superseded in command 
by General Terry commanding the Department. 

The progran;me or purposes of the expedition 
remained the l^ame, viz: the forcible removal of all 
Indians upon their reservations or upon reserva- 
tions to be assigned them. About three thou- 



i62 Frontier AND Ijndtan Ltke. 

sand Sioux and Cheyennes living along- the Yv\. 
lowstone river and its upper tributaries would be 
effected by this order of the Interior and War De- 
partment. To make resistance to removal seem 
helpless to the Indians, three separate military ex- 
peditions were started from different quarters and 
all to convero^e in the neighborhood of the so- 
called hostile camps. General Crook commenced 
the march early in the spring from Wyoming, and 
General Gibbon with another army were marchinor 
down from Fort Ellis, Montana. 

General Terry left Fort Abraham Lincoln, in 
May, for his line of march following up Heart 
river, thence over and along the Yellowstone until 
the hostile camps were met with. The command 
numbered about three thousand soldiers, nearly- 
one third being mounted. The 7lh cavalry under 
General Custer took the advance and with hint 
went the chief guide Reynolds, Girard and the 
principal part of the Aricaree scouts. 

Custer and his regiment kept steadily in the 
lead of the main command until the 25th ot June 
when the first signs of Indians were discovered. 
The cavalry leader then divided his command into* 
four parts with the inteniion of surprising the In- 
dian village and cut of any hope of escape by the: 
inmates. No attention or thought was given to 
the number the village might contain. Cusler did 
not expect they Vv^ould stand up for a fight, hence 
the trivial matter about the mmiber of savages 
would be of no consequence to him. 



Lonesomf: Charley. i6 



J 



In the order of this cavalry divison, Custer 
headed five companies, and three companies was 
placed in charge of Major Reno and three com- 
panies under Captain Benteen, and one company 
and the pack train under Captain McDougal 
formed a reserve. When the cavalry commands 
separated the Indian village was not yet in sight. 
Benteen deployed to the left front, and Reno and 
Custer divided to strike the camp from different 
quarters, each to support one another in certain 
emergencies very likely to happen. 

With Custer rode three citizens — his brother 
Boston, young Reed a nephew, and Editor Kel- 
log, die expedition correspondent of the New 
York Herald and Bismarck Tribune. But Rey- 
nolds, Girard, the Jackson boys, Bloody Knife, 
Bob Tailed Bull and the major part of the Arica- 
ree scouts accompanied Reno. 

In order to portray the situation of Reno's com- 
mand in this thrilling encounter, we have his state- 
ment that at half-past twelve o'clock he received 
a dispatch from Custer, who was then two miles 
in advance, to move to the front as rapidly as 
possible, "as the Indians were running away." 

Reno says in his report of the action that day, 
that his orders were to "move forward at as rapid 
a gait as prudent, to charge afterwards, and the 
whoh^ outfit would support me." He rode at a 
fast trot for two miles, crossed the Little Big Horn 
river at a ford, halted ten minutes to gather his 
batallion, and moved on down the valley with his 



164 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

men in line of battle. The small number of In- 
dians who appeared, fled before him for two miles 
and a half, making scarcely any resistance. 

"I soon saw," says Reno, "that I was being- 
drawn in some trap, as they certainly would fight 
harder, especially as we were nearing their village, 
which was still standing; besides I could not see 
Custer or any other support, and at the same 
time the very earth seemed to grow Indians, and 
they were running toward me in swarms, and fri >m 
all directions. I saw I must defend myself, and 
give up the attack mounted. This I did taking 
possession of a point of woods, which, furnished 
near its edo^e a shelter for the horses; dismounted 
and fought them on foot, making headway on 
through the wood. I soon found myself in near 
vicinity of the village; saw that I was fiohting odds 
of at least five to one, and ihat my only hope was 
to get out of the wood, where I would soon have 
been surrounded, and gain some higher ground. 
I accomplished this by mounting and cliarging the: 
Indians between me a.nd the bluff, widi the hxss of 
three officers and twenly-nine enlisted men killed, 
and seven wounded." 

It in was the earlier part of this hard fighiing 
that Reynolds went down to his death. While at 
the edge of the timber spoken off, and when the 
Indians were making a flanking assault whh die 
evident intention of cut'dng Reno's command in 
two pans, Reynold's — true to his character — un- 
mindfid of his own danoer when odiers were in 



LoNFSOME Charley. 165 

peril, said to Dr. Porter, who was standing at the 
edge of the timber, dressed in a linen duster and 
consequently a conspicuous target for the Indians: 

''Look out Doctor, the Indians are shooting at 
you !" 

These were Reynolds' last words as far as 
known. A few minutes later, in attempting to re- 
join his retreating companions, having vainly tried 
to check the ferocious savage onslaught, his horse 
went down under the leaden shower pinning its 
intrepid rider to the earth, and then he fell- an 
easy victim though not without first emptying his 
revolver at his advancing foes. 

His last words of warning to Dr. Porter proba- 
bly proved a godsend to the wounded soldiers on 
the battle field, as the Doctor was at that critical 
time the only surviving surgeon then?, the other 
two being already killed. 

When General Terry's troops took possession 
of the field several days after the battle, the head- 
less trunk of Reynolds v.as found; it lay near 
where he fell. His bones were afterward re- 
interred by a professor of the Ann Arbor Univer- 
sity, near the site of that Michigan college. This 
scholarly friend had made Reynolds acquaintance 
on the Black Hills expedition of 1874, and we be- 
lieve was the one who first bestowed upon him 
the sobriquet "Lonesome Charley." 

.Such is a short summary of the career of a re- 
markable frontierman. As a devoted student, and 
admirer of the botanist and the naturalist, he was 



i66 Frontier AND IjNDTAN Life. 

in correspondence with some of the professors of 
our leading universities; he was oftimes their 
guide and companion in the search for the curious 
and rare specimens to be found among the bad 
lands of the Little Missouri river. While his 
earlier military career is a subject for contradictory 
opinions,* the reputation of his closing career is of 
the best — a brave and reliable scout — a guide of 
sagacity and precision; as a hunter standing with- 
out a peer in the wild west; and as a manly man, 
a prince among his fellows. 

*In the summer of 1864, when the cause of the Con- 
federacy was reeling to its final fall, some of its 
tardy friends in Colorado, thought their lime had 
come to show their hands and assist in some way 
to revive hope in ultimate success in thetriumpli of 
the stars and bars. Among these were three ininei'S 
by the name of Reynolds — all brothers, who con- 
trived the scheme of a successful insurrection in 
the mountains of Colorado, as a diversion strictly in 
sympathy with the Southern cause. 

The beautiful valley of the upper Arkansas was 
the chosen field — amid as wild and pictuesque scen- 
ery as where John Brown tried his similar plan — 
though in another cause — among the misty vales of 
the romantic Shenandoah. The numbers of the in- 
surgents were identical in each instance, and their 
fate was nearly the same, though a show of justice 
at least, marked the treatment of the Virginians to 
John Brown — a murder most foul recorded the shoot- 
ing of the manacled, untried prisoners in the rear 
of the Four Mile House near Denver. The scene 
at Harper's Ferry marked the beginning of the civil 
war; the Denver scene, near the end. The two elder 
of the Reynolds' brothers died thus; the third a 
mere boy, reprieved, and whom it is now asserted 
by many, was our hero, "Lonesoine Charley." 




Capt. Tom Custer. 



EDITOR KELLOaa. 

THE haymakers of the Upper Missouri, in the 
year 1874, had an embarrassing time. It 
was one of those dry rainless summers that come 
but too frequently in that country. The hay con- 
tractors for the military posts put in their bids 
early, made no calculation for a drouth and con- 
sequent shortage of the hay crop — so, failed. 
Stoyall, a noted Bismarck barrister, closed up his 
law books, took up a pitchfork and proceeded to 
fill a delinquent contract for P'ort Abraham Lin- 
coln. He succeeded as good lawyers generally 
do when figuring is an assistance. 

In order to secure hay worth the cutting, it be- 
came necessary to go some distance from the post. 
The lawyer betook himself to the succulent gras- 
ses of the Painted Woods, and organized his camp 
and pitched his tents on the bottoms south of the 
Painted Woods Lake. 

The writer, then pursuing a hunter's life, was 
game provider for the haying camp, supplying 
it daily with fresh killed elk, deer and antelope, 
that had fattened among the wild pea vines of the 
woodland or on the sweet and tender green grass 
of the adjoining plain. 

Northward of the hayfield was a dense forest 
of large cottonwoods, and in the centre of the 



i68 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

timber nestled a little lake of crystal water, 
eternally shaded by a canopy of overhanging 
branches, and the stagnant weed bed held its 
surface motionless from the disturbed airy elements 
that surged without, but never ruffled its placid 
bosom. All around and about this lake of the 
woods were great sand dunes, the compilation, 
perhaps, of centuries of fitful sand laden wind 
storms. 

The whole of this heavy forest had been inclu- 
ded in a large island in Lewis and Clark's day, 
and is described in the published journal of these 
explorers as "New Mandan Island." The Painted 
Woods Lake of to-day, being at that time a part 
of the river Missouri's watery bed. 

In summer days when the cottonwood giants 
are in full leaf, the place wears an umbrageous 
gloom. One morning at daybreak, while trailing 
a wounded doe through a particularly dreary part 
of the woods, I come upon the fleshless skeleton 
of a large man. The hair of the head alone re- 
mained intact, which enabled me to recoijnize the 
remains as those of a harmless wanderer, known 
along the LIpper Missouri, as Freneh Joe. He 
became frequently deranged through excessive 
use of bad whiskey and sorrowing thoughts, and 
in the last instance of this kind, had disappeared 
from a newly located ranch bordering the military 
trail, about two months before, and up to the date 
of my stumbling on his remains, his last disap- 
pearance had been a mystery. 



Editor KF.LLOCfG. 169 

The deer's blood spattered trail was at once 
abandoned and I returned to the hay camp and 
reported my ghastly find. In the absence of a cor- 
oner, and being a qualified Justice with a jurisdic- 
tion covering a great stretch of this thinly peopled 
region, — I at once summoned a kind of informal 
jury. While busy with this business, a new fore- 
man of the hay camp was announced, he having 
just came up from Bismarck. It proved to be M. 
M. Kellogg — Editor Kellogg, a casual acquain- 
tance of an earlier day. While publishing the 
Dakota Democrat at Yankton, during the Grant 
and Seymour presidential campaign of 1868, I met 
Kelloes^ as a co-laborer in the same cause, he be- 
ing at that time on the editorial force of the Daily 
Democrat, of Council Bluffs, Iowa, 

When Mr. Kellogg was informed of the finding 
of the corpse, he kindly agreed to accompany us, 
and assist at the inquest and burial. After the 
identification of the remains had been settled up- 
on as those of the unfortunate Frenchman, the 
Editor proceeded to deliver a temperance talk 
that under the circumstances; the time ancj the 
place, made an enduring imprint upon the minds 
and hearts of his few but attentive listeners. 

The gentleman began by informing us that one 
day in Bismarck, some months since he saw the 
deceased reeling through the streets of that town, 
in a drunken or rather an insane condition, when 
he causuly learned something of his early history 
from one who knew him well. He was born and 



I/O Frontier AND Indian Life. 

raised near the city of St. Louis, and belonged to 
one of the old French Creole families there. He 
inherited a fine farm near the city and married an 
accomplished lady in the neighborhood, who in 
time bore him a son, and every prospect of a hap- 
py and prosperous future open out before them. 
Tippling around the saloons on every visit to the 
city, became in time a habit with him, which was 
habitually taken advantage of by the saloon's 
hangers-on, and with the tricky methods of cipher- 
ing up in such cases, and where balance sheets are 
a superfluity, huge bills of indebtedness were 
piled up against his property in various ways, so 
that it was but a matter of a few years when the 
sheriffs hammer closed the beofinnine of a harrow- 
ing scene. The family became homeless. Well, to 
span the details, the wife found an early grave, 
followed soon after by her neglected child. When 
the besotted, unhappy man found his all, forever 
lost to him, boarded an up river bound boat, appar- 
ently to seek the furthermost depths of an un- 
friendly and inhospitable land. For ten years he 
had dl'ifted from place to place, at times hardly con- 
scious of his existance at all. "This is a hard end," 
said Kellogg in conclusion; and looking down for 
a moment upon the skeleton, and then turning his 
eyes around upon the gloomy woodlands about 
him, "I hope and pray that my end — and our (.-nds 
may be different, that we can hope at least for 
good christian burial." 



Editor Kellock;. 172 

Poor Kellogg' ! The book of fate well hid from 
him the leaf that bore in character his pre-destined 
end. How little he. knew — how little we all know 
what the future has in store for us. 

Once more to June 25th, 1876; once more to 
Custer's unlucky field; once more to carnage and 
death. The tide of battle is turning against the 
charging batallions of the 7th cavalr3^ Down to 
the dust amidst tramping and snorting steeds, 
goes the advance guard with their brave leaders — 
Crittenden and Calhoun. FoUowinof them and 
pressed on all sides fights the matchless soldier 
Keogh and his desperate troopers, who stand like 
human ten pins and fall — all of them. Now, to 
the right centre surges the impetuous Tom Cus- 
ter with his loyal squadron who are cut down 
as with a sythe in quick death. On, and on, comes 
the red painted Sioux horde with the fiery fury of 
hell's Satanic legions. But steadily in advance of 
them to pit against a common foe, come the north- 
ern and southern Cheyennes. Are the v;atching 
ghosts of the murdered four hundred mothers and 
babes of Sand creek, hovering around about them 
urging them forward like Mahomet's protecting 
angels on Bede-r's bloody plains ? Or, are their 
arms of iron and their hearts of stone, now, that 
before them are officers and men who stained the 
winter snows of the Washita red with the blood 
of the unprotected and helpless of their own 
people — of Black Kettle's murdered band. 



i73 FRO^'TIER AND Indian Life. 

The last group but one, is fighting on yon sharp 
point of hill. It is General Custer himself and 
the last cotere of his officers and several of his 
men. Blanched faces were now peering out in 
the shadowy realms of death that soon claimed 
them all; and of all the hundred heroic soldiers 
that lay stretched about the banks of the Little 
Big Horn in their shells of cold inanimate clay, 
two corpse alone pass through the hands of the 
vengeful victors without mutilation by knife, tom- 
ahawk, bludgeon or axe — Custer and Editor Kel- 
logg — the savages' last tribute to the bravest of 
brave men. 



INDIAN MOTHERS. 

THOSE of our readers whose cunosty or duty 
have led them to visit an Indian village or 
community, cannot have failed to notice with what 
gentle demeanor the children behave themselves 
in the treatment of their parent's wishes, and the 
civil decorum and unaffected deportment they 
exhibit in the presence of strangers. Yet the 
rod is never a part of the dicipline for children in 
an Indian household. 

The male child is especially exempt from cor- 
poral punishment of any kind, the parents be- 
lieving in the hallowed traditions of their fathers 
and mothers before them, that the chastisement of 
a male child for minor offences breaks down his 
spirit and unfits him for a tuture warrior or leader 
of men. 

In observations of wild Indian life, I have noted 
that much the same causes for conjugal infelicity 
prevails among the savage as with civilized races 
of people; that the young Adonis does not al- 
ways marry his first love, or his second love as 
the case may be; and that accidental alliances or 
those for equality of rank do not always turn out 
(or the best. But, come what may a home of 
happiness or a home of misery, the Indian female 
as a rule, obeys the instincts of true motherhood. 



i74 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

Her child's confidence is won by her motherly 
care and devotion, and its studied obedience to 
her will by an unselfish maternal love. 

Fort Abraham Lincoln was constructed in the 
summer of 1872. It was first laid out and built 
on a high bluff, opposite what was originaly 
known as the Otter tail ford, and since the Sibley 
expedition of 1863, known more generally as the 
Sante.c crossing, which is about one mile below 
where Heart river joins waters with the Missouri. 

The fort site was on the mouldering ruins of 
an old village of the extinct Anahaways, and had 
a splendid view of the surrounding lands. From 
this commanding height the country about radically 
varies its appearances with the changing seasons. 
In winter the vast stretch of landscape brouorht to 
easy optical view, is dreary enough, but in the 
season of green prairies; green leaf covered 
trees and open river waters the prospect is grand. 

A few miles southeast of the fort on the river 
is die heavy timbered Sibley island, so named as 
an obscure tribute to the memory of a true and 
merciful soldier whose fame and acts will live in 
human hearts more for the charity of his deeds, 
rather than those of a combative and sanguinary 
man. Beyond this island and to the south of it are 
the high ridges of Little Heart river, and fur- 
ther on the uneven but showy bluffs of the Calumet 
cones are seen that mark the site of old Fort 
'Rice. 



Indian Motiif.ks. 175 

To the west of the new fort over abrupt and 
uneven hills that mark the lines of the sinuous 
Hart, and to the north rising hia-h above the plain, 
stands the lone White Buffalo butte, and beyond 
them to the right the showy Square Buttes, while 
facing the fort to the east beyond the Missouri, 
spreads out the fertile valley of Apple creek, and 
the adjoining rough, grassy uplands. 

Fort Lincoln thus to view, had originally been 
christened Fort McKean, in honor of a brave 
Pennsylvania officer who fell on one of the battle 
fields of the civil war. The original purpose of 
the post had been to quarter the troops employed 
in protecting from hostile Indian raids the line of 
the Northern Pacific Railroad. 

When General Guster and his 7th cavalry came 
up from the Indian Territory, in 1873, he made his 
cavalry barracks about three quarters of a mile 
south, and directly under the bluffs of the then 
re-christianed fort, which, owing to its growing im- 
portance as a headquarters post, had been given 
the name of the martyred President. From "cav- 
alry quarters" the gradations were easy to "Fort 
Lincoln under the hill," A few years later on 
"Fort Lincoln on the hill," was abandoned and 
the post that still bears that honored name, rests 
quietly on the low bench land beside the great 
river, where often in the near past, the morning's 
bugle call had awakened from peaceful slumbers, 
for the duties of the day, so many of those who 
afterward found the last bod in their eternal sleep 



176 Frontier AND Indian Liik. 

around and among die broken buUes of tlit^ 
Litde Big Horn. 

But it is of Fort McKean or "Lincoln on the 
hill," during its construction period that I write. 
The Sioux had as yet shown no pardcular hostility 
in the country bordering on the Heart river, with- 
in the limits of the Northern Pacific railroad, un- 
til Interpreter Girard had been ordered up to Fort 
Berthold, to enlist and bring down some thirty 
Aricaree braves to do scouting service around the 
new post. This was done the latter part of May, 
1872. This act was to Sioux comprehension a 
virtual declaration of war on the part of the com- 
mandment and the garrison, the Sioux and Aric- 
arees being still at open war. 

Two of these Aricaree scouts were killed while 
escorting the mail to Fort Rice, being waylaid in 
a coulee near Little Heart river. 

As the season advanced and the grass grew 
green for their ponies' feed, the Sioux became 
bolder and finally made a partial investment of 
the fort, and every few days the officers and sol- 
diers standing widiin safe quarters behind the 
ramparts, would witness in open view, gladiatorial 
contests between the Aricr.ree and the Sioux, that 
would have gladdened ihe ston)' heart and excited 
the dormant nerves of the old Roman in the days 
long past, of savage coml ats within die walls of 
the gory-famed Collosseum of the Eternal city. 

On one of these occasions the Sioux warriors 
rode up almost within stone throw of the wood(u^ 



Indian Mothers. 177 

walls of the fort, and shot down an old Aricaree. 
A son of the old man seeing his father fall, made 
a rush toward him, saying as he ran: "Over my 
father's dead body, I die !" The Sioux made the 
boy's word good. He fell across his father's 
corpse filled with bullets and arrows. 

The outcome of these many hostile encounters 
between the beligerent red men was, that when 
the Aricarees were discharged in Novemb^^r, ot 
that year, they left nearly one third of their num- 
ber behind them, the vicdms of Sioux aggressive- 
ness, persistence and murderous ferocity. 

One stormy day in December, several weeks 
after the discharge of the balance of the scouts 
from Fort Abraham Lincoln they came sauntering 
through the timber trail to my Painted Woods 
stockade. They had been traveling leisurely along 
the freshly, but solidly frozen river, hunting the 
elk, deer and bear, along the timber bends. 

While in camp near the Square Buttes, they 
had observed sign of their Sioux enemies, so de- 
parted in haste for my place for besides the little 
loop-holed fort being an emergency rendesvous, 
the situation of the pomt itself was favorably lo- 
cated for a successful defense from the assault of 
an overpowering enemy. 

Among the party was a middle aged woman. 
She was one of the newly made widows, her hus- 
band having died bravely in front of Fort Abra- 
ham Lincoln. She was cook for the party, while 



178 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

her son, a boy of perhaps fifteen summers, was 
acting as one of the horse guards. 

During their stay at the stockade, the mother 
was continually uneasy lest they had been fol- 
lowed up by the Sioux, who in an unexpected 
moment would pounce upon their horses and her 
boy, whose duty led him out on the watch, and 
might fall as her husband had fallen and leave 
her utterly alone. 

When relieved temporarily from duty, to rest 
and eat his ever ready and carefully prepared 
meals — the boy's return to the camp in safety 
would be moments of joy to the tender hearted 
woman; her eyes would sparkle and glisten, a re- 
flection as it were, from the mirror of a happy 
heart. A mother's careful eye watched his every 
movement and a mother's love was continually 
finding endearing expressions and would articulate 
softly in her feminine way. 

"I love my boy dearly" she would say, as in- 
terpreted from her native Aricaree — "he is so 
good and so kind to me, always." Her actions 
were so noticeable at the time that this incident 
of the campers remained strangely and strongly 
impressed in my memory after these many years. 

Sometime during the spring of 1S74, the Sioux 
made one of their last hostile raids against the 
allied tribes in the village at Fort Berthold. A 
war party of three hundred eamc in sight on the 
west side of the Missouri, opposite; the village. 



Indian Mothers. 179 

and sip-nailed their defiance to the Aricarees and 
their Mandan, and Gros Ventre friends, and bid 
them in taunting insults to come and meet death. 
They did not banter in vain. In a few minutes 
the mud-mixed waters of the river's surface in 
front of the village was covered with numbers of 
tub shaped bull boats; the sturdy women deftly 
paddling against the currant as they faced its ed- 
dies and swirls, while the warriors enconsed in the 
boat's bottom, held their guns in one hand and with 
the other firmly grasped their chargers' lariat, 
while the noble beasts plunged and snorted wildly 
as if that gave additional propelling power to 
reach solid ground. 

Amidst all this excited throng, there was one 
calm voice. It was in the little bull boat of a 
woman and a youthful warrior — the cook and her 
young son of the Fort Lincoln scouts of 1872. 
She was encouraging him in the same endearing 
terms — ^yer dear to her and to him. She bade 
him be a good true soldier and avenge the death 
of his father. Upon reaching the hostile shore 
the boy sprang nimbly from the boat, mounted his 
dripping , war horse and was soon lost to his 
mother's sight and found himself amidst hi? encir- 
cling foes. 

In a few hours the Sioux were driven from the 
plain and bluff and scattered like frightened quail 
far away ,^ until the shadows of the night covered 
their tr0^. _, 

The victors-^les.s five — returned to their boats 



i8o Frontier AND Indian Life. 

at dusk. The bodies of four of them had been 
found by their friends, but the fifth, the widow's 
boy, could nowhere be seen. He had been noticed 
fighting among his enemies, but it was all that was 
known of liim. The victors with loud shouts and 
songs recrossed the river, the widow alone remain- 
ing to keep silent vigil for her lost boy. 

Now listening for approaching footsteps — now 
hearing the vigorous thumping of the drums and 
the loud shrill cries that accompanies the war 
song of the victors at the village, as wafted across 
the water in the still air of the night. To her 
they were sounds of mingled joy and sadness. 
Where was her boy? Every strange sound 
brought her hope — every silence wrecked it. 
When morning ciame with its str^^aks of gray 
dawn, the poor wretched mother stood watching 
in shivering silence by her little round boat on the 
brrak of the mist-hidden river. 

Time — that balm which so often soothes the 
heart of the weary laden, brought no comfort to 
this Indian mother. The traditions of savage life! 
had taugbt her that there was a dreaded posabil-" 
ity for her son of the fate of a scalpless warrior — 
a life bordering between the living and the dead. 
To be among the living and yet remain unseen. 
Of all the cruel fates that an Indian fears, the hor- 
rors of a scalpless warrior's spreads out its blat^k- 
est pall. 

If, by that mysterious law that custom had en- 
forced for ages, that sight from each other must 



Indian Mothers, i8i 

be forever Jiid, she would do all that was left for 
a mother to do; she would bring him clothes for 
his back, and moccasins for his feet; she would 
bring him his food, and light for his fire. 

Day after day and as month succeeded month 
this Indian woman could be seen leaving the 
Agency at Port Berthold with a little bundle on 
her back, walk down to the river bank, take her 
dried skin boat, ferry herself over the river, and 
then wind her way over the h^h chain of bluffs 
to where her boy was last seen alive by his friends, 
and depost her bundle on a rising mound and 
silently return by the same route. 

When winter came, no storm was too boisterous, 
no cold too severe, or no snow so deep that could 
prevent her making the accustomed journey to the 
high divide. That nothing but the unmistakable 
sign of the raven, the magpi and the wolf, as they 
picked and prowled among her careful stores, 
seemed never for a moment to discourage her. 
Long after the melting of the snows in the spring 
time, the little heap of comforts lay untouched, 
apparently — save by the beasts and the birds. 

In the month of May, 1875, General Custer, 
then in command of Fort Abraham Lincoln, de- 
termined to stop hostilities between the Sioux and 
the Aricarees. To this end he invited a general 
council of these of Indians at the fort. They 
came. The Sioux all splendidly armed and 
mounted; the Aricarees, though poorer, looking 



1 82 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

their best. The. lonely widow had finally been 
persuaded by her friends to accompany them to 
learn from the Sioux some certainty as to the 
whereabouts of her boy. 

There was an old custom among these wild 
tribes of the plains, and to some extent is still 
a lingering relic with the less advanced ones, that 
when the warring nations make overtures for 
peace, and assemble in the interests of its con- 
sumation, they first flaunt in each others faces, 
vicious reminders of the bloody past. If they 
then subdue their ruffled tempers, and dissemble 
their hates, they are ready to shake the hand of 
amity and forgiveness. 

At this meeting of the belligerents, Son of the 
Stars, the wise and able chief of the Aricarees, 
told his followers to "bear the insults that they' 
may shower upon us that the end may be peace. 
The Sioux may send our hearts to the ground, oh, 
my people, but nerve yourselves for their taunts, 
and bear theni bravely and well." 

These two tribes that had been warring be-times 
for over a century of years came again together 
as during intervals in their strife in the past; to 
sue, to forgive and to forget — to shake the friend- 
ly hand and 'to smoke in peace the fragrant calu- 
met. 

The showy and vaunting Sioux, as was expect- 
ed, came Haunting up in savage gorgeousness, 
with the trophies of former wars proudly tied and 
bore aloft upon their coo sticks. Among their 



IxDi.w Moriu'ks. t8 



J 



array of dried scalp locks taken from their enemies' 
heads, was one — a long- glistening braid — a few 
rings and i)eads. with bits of faded cloth tied 
about them. 

"Oh, my boy, my poor boy !" came in hurried 
words or rather screams from the lips ot the Ar- 
icaree woman. The poor creature had recognized 
this last display as the familiar trinkets; the scalp 
lock and the blood smeared garments of her son; 
and unable to bear more, uttered a piercing 
shriek and fell to the ground. Her sorrowing 
heart had burst in twain. 

]^b^^^ years after the first settlement at the 
Missouri river crossing of the Northern Pacific 
railroad, more particularly during the time that 
Ariraree scouts were being employed at Fort 
Abraham Lincoln, small gangs or parties of this 
tribe were frequently passing and re-passing along 
the Fort Stevenson and Bismarck trail for the 
purposes of barter and trade with the wide awake 
merchants of the growing town by the crossing. 

Owing to previous acquaintance, and to some 
knowledge of the Pawnee tongue, of which many 
of the Aricarees were also familliar, these red 
travelers made s. regular rule of way camping at 
the limber point to which I had made claim. The 
chief of this tribe had asked as a special re- 
quest that 1 permit such of his people who came 
that way to rest themselves in camp there. Some 
of the white settlers along the trail had regarded 



184 Frontier and Indian Life. 

these wandering reds as intruders, and their mere 
presence as intrusive, and it was the wish of this 
fair minded Indian chief, that he would guard 
against the least semblance of a pretext for un- 
pleasant thoughts between his people and the 
aggressive strangers. 

Among these casual campers at Preparation 
point was a tall Aricaree called Walkingbull, wife 
and child. In all my dealings with him, he sus- 
tained his record of past life, as an upright, hon- 
est Indian, and passed his days quietly. His wife, 
younger in years, was cheerful and kind hearted 
in her primitive way. A little girl with painted 
cheeks, bundled up in her beady, buckskin robe 
completed the personal of the family. 

Known by name as Pawnee Talker, among diis 
tribe, I found that Mrs. Walkingbull, also laid 
kinship to one of the Platte river bands and de- 
liohted to discourse in the Pawnee tono^ue. In 
this way a friendship began with the Walkingbull 
household that continued unbroken along the 
line of passing seasons. 

About 1882, after an absence of nearly iwo 
years, Mrs. Walkingbull came into camp widi 
a party of friends. She had much to say. Her 
o-ood old husband, ailing these many years had 
been quietly laid at rest. His tall form would 
never again be seen bending over the familiar 
camp fire. Her little pratling daughter had been 
given over to the missionaries care, to be taught 
the ways of white people and be educated. 



Indian Mothers. 185 

Two more 3'ears olided by, and again the 
Widow Walkingbull came to revisit the old scenes 
of her earher davs. She had good news to tell. 
Her daughter had been sent to a school in the far 
east and would come to her some day a fine lady. 
The intervenincr time to herself would be long- 
and the absence of her child, trying in its lone- 
liness. But to know that she would return to her 
some day. decked out in fine dresses and bearing 
herself in ladylike, mannerly ways, encouraged 
her ihn^ugh the ordeal. She remembered the 
slights put upon herself and daughter by the 
dressy fair haired girls as they promenaded the 
streets of the town by the railroad, who sneered 
at herself and child for their grotesque garb and 
unconventional ways. And now when her girl re- 
turned from her stay in sunrise land, she would 
mingle with her fair haired Aryan sisters with all 
the grace they themselves possessed. Then in 
the exuberance of her joy as the fanciful shad- 
OW.S of th^' imagination flitted gaily by, the widow 
exacted a promise that when her girl did return 
I come up to the Aricaree village and behold 
the transformation — to see the little greasy-faced 
smoke perfumed Indian girl decked out in her 
silken finery, rich laces and plumed hat. 

At last alter an absence of many years — it 
being then the summer of 1889, I found it conve- 
nient to take a drive to Fort Berthold. I was 
preparing for a far eastern trip to be gone a num- 
ber of years and had come up for a final look at 



i86 Frontier and Indtan Liff. 

the old village and say trood bye for the last time 
to many of its inmates. Naturally enoiioh I en- 
quired for the Widow Walkingbull's residence, 
and was shown a little dwelling surrounded by ar- 
tificial arbors and a neat white pailing inclosed it 
nicely. The widow, I thought, anticipating her 
daughter's return endeavored to fix up her place 
so that when she arrived the young lady need not 
be ashamed of her mother or her home. 

Mrs. Walkingbull met me at the gate. .She 
made no demonstration but asked that I follow 
her. In a darkened room I was led to where on a 
bed lay an amaciated girl breathing in short gasps, 
evidently in the last stages of pulmonary con- 
sumption. The eye of the mother scanned ni)- 
face steadily. She seemed in one minute recalling 
all the hopes and dreams of years. Choking sobs 
filled her throat as she pointed to the suffering 
form and said faintly: "See ! My daughter has 
come home." — 

A flickering^ flash — a peissing- shadow; 
An inanimate form — a bed of clay. 
The twilight dirge ; an Indian mother 
Craving the light for a better way. 




Representative Sionx Warriors who 

took part in the Battle on the 

Little Bio- Horn. 



SOME INCIDENTS 0? INDIAN WARFARE. 

THE merciless and indiscriminate slaughter of 
the innocent and helpless whom the fortunes 
of war have placed in the power of the victor, is 
one of the darkest and most indefensible traits of 
character of the principal tribes of the American 
Aborigines. From the day that Christopher Col- 
umbus and his little band of Spanish adventurers 
landed on the strands of historic San Salvador, in 
October, 1492, until within a very few years ago, 
Indian warfare as conducted between belligerent 
tribes of the red race, have been a continual war 
of extermination. 

Residing so many years within the territory 
claimed and occupied by some of the most warlike 
of these nations, many incidents of the ferocious 
nature of the wild warrior came under my obser- 
vation and knowledge during that period, and of 
some acts even in the midst of the excitement of 
battle there were the glimmering of chivalrous 
deeds, i hen again there vv ere acts perpretrated in 
the name of war that sadden our hearts with the 
memory of the poor victims ol maniacal mad- 
ness though their once breathing forms have long 
since commingled widi earthy dust. In spite 
of our efforts of controlling will to h id(! the 
horrors of many oi ihes(i iiendish acts in the pan- 



1 88 Frontier \nd Indian Likk. 

arama of savage life from 'memory, yet they recur 
again and again in the whirl of thought and will 
remain the actual in spite of all effort to treat them 
as passing dreams. It is of some of these casual 
incidents of Indian warfare that came within my 
observation or of personal] aquaintance with the 
actors that I will proceed to narrate : 

One of the oldest of the four traders trying to 
do business in that line at Fort Berthold in 1869. 
was lefferson Smith, a resident of the Indian 
country for over fifty years. He had been horn 
and spent his boyhood in New Orleans but from 
early manhood had experienced no change from 
the hazardous existence incidental to a frontiers- 
man's life. He was one of the tree trapper's 
in the Crow country in 1831-3,80 romantically 
described by Irving in his adventures of Captain 
Bonneville. After living among the Crows for a 
number of years Smith joined a partv of Minne- 
tarees or Gros Ventres who were originally a part 
of the Crow nation. He married among the 
Gros Ventres, became a camp trader, and pros- 
pered for awhile, but some bad partnerships and 
rascally clerks brought him to the verge of ruin 
in which condition the writer found him in ihe 
spring of 1869, during a few weeks sojourn with 
the venerable trader pendino- the probating events 
of my "tenderfoot" period. Besides l)eing very 
poor the old man, then nearing seventy years of 
age, was almost totally blind; the sight of one 
eye gone entirely and the other nearly so. 



Some Incidents oe Indian Warfare. 189 

In this condition, Trader Smith made a trip to 
F"ort Stevenson durinor the closing days of that 
year. He was accompanied by his son John then 
a twelve year old lad, and a Gros Ventre "bur- 
dashe." After loading up with a good jag of 
bacon and other supplies obtained from the com- 
missary of the military post, the trio started 
out on their homeward way on the sec( nd day of 
the new year, and concluded to follow the river 
trail as offering the inducement of a shorter route 
and consequent saving of time over the regular 
tr-.veled military road. When nearing the bad 
lands that raise their disordered columns interme- 
dia':e of the two forts, the burdashe noticed some 
Indians in their rear riding hard apparently with 
the idea of overtaking the wagon party. On 
nearer approach the terrified burdashe discovered 
the approaching horsemen were Sioux, so ran 
from the wagon toward a willow thicket some 
distance ahead. The Sioux gave chase, caught 
killed and scalped him and threw his body on a 
drift pile, where in company with a party, I found 
the remains three months later, unburied and about 
as the Sioux had left it after mutilation. 

In the meantime a part of the Sioux started 
after the occupants of the wagon, surrounded the 
the team and commenced to unhitch them and at 
the same time ordering the occcupants to the 
ground. The boy was terrified into speechless- 
ness after witnessing the fate of the burda.she 
and knowing the character of Indian warfare, he 
could expect only immediate death, 



I go Frontier \ni) L\dtan Life. 

"I am old, and blind, as you can see," said the 
stricken old man to his captors in their own Sioux 
language, "take my team, take my provisions; 
take my life and my scalp, but spare my little 
son." 

"Do the Gros Ventre warriors spare our child- 
ren ?" asked a Sioux, at the same time making- 
ready to shoot the boy, while others were unharnes- 
ingthe mules or filching eatables from the wagon. 

"Stay !" exclaimed an old Sioux who came up 
just then, for nearly fifty grim warriors had gath- 
ered about, "Stay," repeated the Sioux veteran 
and the uplifted gun was lowered, and busy hands 
were quieted. The appearance of the speaker 
seemed to command their respect, and his tone of 
voice riveted attention. 

He then told them that over twenty years 
before a party of Blackfoot Sioux, himself among 
the number were encamped on the lower Yellow- 
stone, when an ice gorge suddenly overwhelmed 
their camp from effects of melting snow. All 
they could do was to save their lives, and some 
were drowned. Horses, teepes, guns and bedding 
were covered under a mountain of ice. "W'e 
were hundreds of miles from our people," went 
on the speaker, "with enemies all about us. With 
auns, arrows, rob^^s and horses we would not have 
cared. But without them we were afraid. Near 
the Missouri's big bend we sneaked into die Gros 
Venires' winter camp. We were entertained 
sulkily and half suspected all of us would be killed. 



SdMi-; Incihents of Indian Warfare. 191 

A white trader amongst them, that kind hearted 
old bhnd man now before you, took us to his store 
o^ave us robes, gave us blankets, and even loaned 
us guns. When the Gros Ventres saw this act 
of the white trader, they became ashamed and 
then turned in and helped us also, and we made 
our v^ay to the Blackfoot camp on the Moreau." 

It is but justice to add. that the mules and pro- 
visions were restored; the boy and his blind 
father helped in the wagon, and told to "go," while 
the Sioux warriors moved rapidly forward to the 
lasi hostile mid-winter raid ever made against the 
old Indian \il!age at P^ort Berthold. 

About ihe miidclle of the month of May, 1872 
having an errand to perform, I saddled up a favor- 
ite steed and rode up along the river to P^ort Ber- 
thold. On the morning following my arrival at 
the Agency, the inhabitants of the Indian village 
were startled from their slumbers at early dawn 
by the rapid firing of guns and successive war 
whoops. It was in this way a mounted war party 
of thirty-five Gros Ventres and Mandans signalled 
their return from a successful war raid. 

The party had been absent ten days. In their 
outward journey they trailed along the headwaters 
of Turtle, Painted Woods, Burnt, Apple and Bea- 
ver creeks. While carefully scouring along this 
latter stream the war party espied two lodges in 
which people were noticed stirring about. The 
inmates were Yanktoney Sioux. They were out 



192 Frontier j^nd Indian Life. 

from the main camp near Grand river and were 
enjoying a spring hunt after antelopes, ducks and 
geese, with which that stream and valley abound- 
ed. The two teepes contained five persons 
when sighted by the war party. In one teepe a 
woman and child, in the other a woman and two 
boys. Early that morning a party of white men 
coming from Grand river agency, and bound for 
the new railroad town at the Missouri river cross- 
ing, had passed that way, and the ponies belong- 
ing to the inmates of the two lodges had strayed 
after them. The two Indians missing their stock, 
and not dreaming of any pardcular danger left 
their families to trail up and bring back the es- 
trays. 

This was the situation when the thirty-five Man- 
dan and Gros Ventre warriors rode down on a 
gallop with frighful yells and surrounded the two 
lodges. The woman and children, stupified with 
fear crouched within doors. The two boys were 
first dragged out, killed and scalped. The young- 
er of the two woman was next dragged out and 
outraged and butchered. Her child clinging to 
her was taken away by an old Mandan with the 
intention of taking it home to his village and 
adopting it, but its cries exasperating~some of the 
younger members of the party, it was taken from 
him and the child brained against a huge stone. 

The mother of the two boys, alone surviving, 
was ordered l;y some one in authority to cook up 
provisions enough to (t^cd the entire party. It is 



So MI:] InCIDKnTS OF InDIAN WaKFAR^. 1 93 

almost impossible to conceive the dreadful 
thoughts that must have been in the mind of this 
poor creature at this time while m.T.king the en- 
forced banquet to her own and her childrens' des- 
troyers, for, no sooner was the feast ended a tom- 
ahawk was sunk in her brain and her scalp cut 
and torn from her head. 

Such were the particulars of the Beaver creek 
raid, as told by the participants on their return. A 
war dance was at once arranged by the party and 
the streaming scalp locks of the unfortunate vic- 
tims were exhibited by the vaunting dancers in 
their black faced masks. The blood smeared tro- 
phies were carried aloft on poles, and placed in 
the centre of a ring around which members of the 
war party kicked and chaunted, surrounded by 
interested groups of both sexes, old and young. 

The day following, as was custom, the scalps 
were thrown to the elderly dames who paraded in 
bands before the various stores, and the homes of 
the white residents, wn'th a dancing and singing- 
bout by turns in front of them. As was also cus- 
tom, these traders who had lived on the patronage 
of Indians were now expected to set before their 
guests, well filled pots of cooked meats and ket- 
tles brimming over with good hot coffee. Thus 
passed day succeeding the arrival of the raid- 
ers. First one group of dancers then another 
tossed the scalp locks of the murdered women 
and children of Beaver creek. Now dragging 
them along the ground — now holding them up to 



194 Frontier \ni) Lndian Liik. 

taunts and insults of the motlev crowd that jeered 
and hooted through the dusty streets of this 
Indian town. 

About two months after the massacre of the 
two Sioux famihes at Beaver creek, the writer, who 
was then erecdngsome claim cabins in Point Prep- 
aration, Painted Woods, my attention was arrested 
by the sounds of Indian war songs, gradually ap- 
proaching through the by-paths in the timber. 

It proved to be an Aricaree war party of seven 
led by a brave who had heretofore enjoyed the 
reputation of being the best hunter and most suc- 
cessful warrior among his tribe. His painted robe 
marked the record of achievements in war raids, 
and in sinole-handed contests with cinnamon bears 
that were proud history for the Aricarees, — that 
one among their number could do such wonders 
that must terrify their enemies by his boldness. 

The Indian leader after a few moments rest re- 
mounted his pony and was iollowed by a compan- 
ion, bearing alofc on a pole a fresh scalp lock of 
long flowing hair. The balance of il\e party re- 
mained seated and on<" of them told a tale of en- 
counter, in which they bore off in triumph this 
fileeding scalp lock of die hated Sioux. Vnr my 
practical sympathy in their cause and a subsiantial 
recognition of their prowess, they demanded a 
feast of venison, bread and coffee, as in the good 
old days of Indian supremacy along the Missouri. 

About one week after this incident of die war 




James B. Gayton, 

One of the Pioneers of Dakota Territory. 



SoMK I.\(ll)i: NIS Ol- LXDIAN WaRFARK. I95 

party, the true story of the scalp lock and the 
victim of this Aricaree band. The tragedy took 
place near Gayton's ranch, located at that time 
on the east bank of the Missouri, not far from 
the present boundary line between North and 
South Dakota. 

Andrew Marsh, who resided with Ranchman 
Gayton told a pitying account of the fate of his 
young Sioux wife, a girl of about fifteen years of 
age. The two were out walking some distance 
from the ranch when they saw seven Indians 
all mounted, leisurely coming through the bot- 
toms from the north. The girl trained from child- 
hood to close observation of surrounding objects, 
quickly noticed that the Indians were not of her 
own people, and looking up appealingly to her 
husband's face in a trembling voice said :• 
"O, they are Aricarees ! They will kill me." 
As Marsh was unarmed, and although trying to 
reasure the girl, but while doing so, they moved 
rapidly toward the ranch which they had hoped to 
reach before being overtaken. But the Aricarees 
— for such they proved to be — anticipated this 
move by riding on a run, veering in a half circle, 
and placed themselves in front of the fugitives. 
The girl could no longer speak, but clung to her 
husband's arm; an Indian rode up behind, shot 
her down, while two or three of the others 
jumped from their ponies, cut and tore the long 
flowing locks from the girl's head, while she w'as 
yet in her dying gasps. Mr. Marsh was not 



196 Frontikr \.\1' Im'1.\.\ Li; ' 

harmed, but was told if he needed another wife !o 
come up to Fort Berthold and they would hunt 
him up a maid from among- the Aricarees. 

But the member's of this Indian war party 
were made to feel, that this kind of business was 
not to a warrior's credit. Bob Tailed Bull, before 
this aftair had been made much of by whi'e 
acquaintences, was now shunned b\- them and 
he felt the slights keenly. He went out with Cus- 
ter on his last expedition and rode bravely to his 
death on the Little Big Horn. The balance of 
the party have long since passed from among ihe 
livino"; the most of them like their leader met vio- 
lent, tragic ends. 

Nearly two months p?.ssed away before In- 
dians from any tribe was to be seen around ihe 
Painted Woods. One day, by accident, 1 noticed 
two red men following along up stream under the 
cut bank on the opposite side ot the river, brom 
their manner of traveling, it was plain the\- were 
trying to escape observation. 

Two or three weeks later, in company wi.h Joe 
Blanchard and Little Dan, we made camp at ilie 
Painted Woods Lake, and spread out a trap line 
around that grreat crame resort. One evenijij/ 
while there encamped, we were joined by "Hcotty" 
Richmond, the Forts Rice and Stevenson mail 
carrier, when a high old time was had around a 
big' blazinor fire until after midnipfht. A. [he first 
break of day. we arose and each trapper .ook his 



So.MK Inc'idknts of Indian Warfare. 197 

separate line and the mail carrier resumed his 
lonesome journey. The rule of the camp was, 
the first trapper from his line cooked breakfast, 
and being- the first to return on that morning, I 
was chagrined and surprised to find that our 
limited supply of coffee and bacon had disappeared, 
yet no object could be seen; though the verest 
bit of a red rag and the soft impression of a moc- 
asin in the trost suggested a gruesome warrior 
somewhere about. When the other trappers re- 
tiu'ned, a further search was made and somebody 
had been laying in a clump of bushes near camp 
and from appearances had been in hiding there 
ior several hours. 

A replinishment of our "grub" being now a 
necessity, 1 rode down to Preparation for a fresh 
supply. While passing along the broken hills be- 
fore entering the timber in which the stockade was 
located, 1 noticed |im Andrews, who had been left 
in charge of the siockade, crouching behind 
a huge boulder. He rejoiced at my arrival, 
and proceeded to tell about the antics of two 
Sioux "who had ihe timber on me," as he tersely 
expressed it. They were at the edge of the bush 
and in hiding, but shouted for him to come to 
diem. i hey were hungry they said and wanted 
him to take them to the house and furnish some 
food. Andrews was proficient in the Sioux lan- 
guaoe, and understood them well. He feared a 
trap and was on the defensive, as I found him. 

On my appearance the Sioux moved off slowly 



198 Frontier -vnd Indian Like. 

throiieh the brush, and about the same time we 
heard a great noise around the stockade, so push- 
ing through the timber, found a bull boat war 
party of eighty Aricarees in full possession. I 
cautioned Andrews to say nothing about the two 
Sioux, and at once proceeded to fill out the usual 
war party contribution in provision, besides further 
cheering them with a present of two eagle tails. 
After drying their boats for awhile, the whole 
party re-embarked and floated slowly down the 
stream until the bending of the river shut them 
from our view. What were the feelings, mean- 
time, of the Sioux, I never knew. Such an oppor- 
tunity to get two scalps, that was lost through my 
neglecting to tell them at that time — and I was 
frequently reminded after by members of that Ar- 
icaree war party, — so rceiveda good many anath- 
amas for my false fealty to the tribe. But when I 
was informed after that these two Sioux were re- 
turning from an unsuccessful raid on Fort Ber- 
thold, and that they did us no more harm than 
to take a little provision from our camp, though 
their opportunity was greater; and furdiermore 
when I learned that these same two Sioux were 
the husbands and fathers of the victims of the 
Beaver creek raid, my conscience never smote me 
as yet, for savino- their lives at Point Preparation, 




Crow Flies High. — Gros Ventre Chief. 



WITH A GROS YSNTRS WAR PARTY. 

ONE of the peculiar methods of the Mandans, 
Gros Ventres and Arlcaree Indians, making 
war upon the confederated Sioux bands that Hved 
to the south of them was by descending the Mis- 
souri river, cautiously in a fleet of bull boats, and 
when nearing their enemies habitations, abandon 
their boats, make the attack, and depend upon 
darkness or the thick brush patches of the timber 
bends to protect them on their homeward retreat. 
The. bull boat to the wdld red denizens of the 
Upper Missouri, answer the same purpose as 
that of the canoe to their brothers around the wilds 
of the Upper Mississippi or the great northern 
lakes. The boats were formerly made from the 
tough hide of a buffalo bull, stretched green over 
willow frame and shaped out like a tub. The hair 
side of the skin is turned out to better protect the 
vessel from snags. An ordinary bull boat will 
seat from two to five persons. The propelling 
power is a broad paddle with a short handle held 
firmly by the two hands, and at each sink of the 
paddle the person drawing toward themselves. In 
this way rivers with swift currants are almost as 
easily ferried over and with as little exertion, as 
with a row- boat nor skiff, or do they lose much 
headway by the force? of the moving water. 



200 Frontier and Lndtan Life. 

In the preparations for a raid by river the oldest 
boats arr selected, as they must be sunk or aban- 
doned to the enemy at the end of their journey. 
The danger of navigating in a rotten hide cockel 
shell ot a boat does not enter a red marine's head 
although the voyaging into the enemies country is 
most always done in the night. 

In October, 1871, "Trapper" Williams, accom- 
panid by the writer, came up to Fort Berthold, 
purchased a bull boat, provisions, &c., proposing 
to "sign" hunt for beaver, along the Missouri and 
tributary streams as far down as Fort Rice. 

We drifted out of sight of the picturesque fort 
at the Indian village in fine style one day, lazily es- 
consed on blanket seats in our tub-like craft, now 
and then spinning around like a top, from the force 
of a sportive breeze as it played about us in fitful 
gusts. But as usual it kept the centre of the 
channel and moored along swiftly, — now and 
again bumping against obstructions as the channel 
rubbed a cut bank or turned along the main shore. 

After drifting along several hours in this man- 
ner, we reached a place known some time after as 
Chris Weaver's Point, from the fact that this wood- 
yard proprietor was here killed by a medicine band 
of Aricarees. W^e concluded to encamp for din- 
ner there, and while busy gathering faggots for to 
make a fire, we were dismayed and somewhat 
alarmed at the merging into view of about twenty 
bull boats well freighted with Indians, paddling 
rapidly toward us, singing and yelling in great 



With a Gros Ventre War Party. 201 

L>lee, apparent!)-. ^Although we kept among the 
bushes hid from their observation, when they came 
opposite to us (hey espied our unfortunate give- 
away, the Httle bull boat, and we were soon sur- 
sounded by a war party of about forty Gros 
\ entres. 

The pipe carrier or chief of the party was 
known to us as "The-man-that-hunts-his enemy." 
He came forward with the air and demeanor of a 
military dignitary, and recogizing^ from Trapper 
Williams' bearing and from the mystic emblems 
with which he was adorned that he must be "head 
man" of the firm, advanced toward him and with 
gracious mein, warmly shook him by the hand. 

The Gros Ventre leader now plainly told us 
that they were going to war against the Sioux, 
and turning to the writer at this juncture, the chief 
said as interpreted from the. Sioux language : 

"You talk Sioux. You may be at heart a 
Sioux. But if not, and you are a friend to the 
Gros Ventres, you will accompany us, — if you do 
not we will take you." 

The deer hunters sent out by the chief on their 
first arrival at camp returned in about an hour 
carrying two deer, when a great feast was pre- 
j)ared with ceremonies as austere as those conven- 
tional affairs among the Washin<^ton deplomats at 
their state dinners. Trapper Williams "sate" at 
the chiefs right, while the reporter of the bccasion 
-seated himself at the chief's left side. Crow 
Flies High, a warrior of prominence and repre- 



202 FUdXril'k \Mi 1m HAN I.II'l',. 

sontative of the "Buonn.parte" Taction ol the Gros 
Ventres, and afterwards chief ot thesr indc^pen- 
clents who refused for many years to conform to 
treaties and conditions they had no hand at shape- 
ing — was at this spread, and a distinguished shar- 
er in attention from the chief, and given a prom- 
inent position at the martial feast. Loquatious- 
ness ruled during the passage of plates. 1 he 
"taciturn savage" that we read of is no relative of 
the Gros V^entres, especia,lly during dinner hours. 

After the feast a pipe well filled with kinnekinik 
was lighted and a ceremonious smoke at passing 
the pipe was participateel by all in a circle in which 
Man-that-hunts-his-enemy was the principal figure 
as its honored carrier. The smoke over, the Trap- 
per and I, after a careful canvass of the situation, 
concluded to join the Ciros V'entres through at 
least a part of the .Sioux country, and "tak(? chan- 
ces'" on the final outcome. 

We passed Fort Stevenson without being dis- 
covered or interfered with by the military at that 
post, — passed along under the bluffs at the mouih 
of Snake creek at sundown; catching, as we drift- 
ed along" the wild fury of a cyclonic storm in th(^ 
midst of which, for self preservation, to save the 
swamping and sinking of our frail \essels wcrr 
forced to handlock the entire flotilla, making a 
laroe raft — an invaluable protection to the cut 
waves ot the short bends or curves of the chan- 
nel in mid stream, in bad storms. 

We cooked supper at the Red Lake, long since 



With a Gkos X'kntkf, War Partv. 203 

a part of the main channel of the wide Missouri. 
A beautiful body of clear water; a marginal rim 
of wavy willows and tall young cottonwoods mir- 
roring- their stately forms on the surface of the 
becamed lake, marked the spot where an evenino- 
of hilarious mirth and gastronomic feastino- was 
had by these wild warriors. A deep flowing 
stream; fitful gusts of sand is now the imprint 
that time has wrought. The upland plain; the 
red seamed buttes alone mark the outline — a 
spoiled picture in a pretty frame. 

When it become dark we made preparatious to 
re-embark, for traveling by night and hiding by 
day would be the established rule, so the chief in- 
formed us, as we entered the Sioux country. The 
stillness of the night was broken by some yelpino 
coyotes, afier which the good humored Gros Ven- 
tres took up the refrain with thumping of tin 
pan drums and singing in a hioh pitch the peculiar 
tribel songs, confused and silenced even these nosy 
beasts. When nearinp- the Tough Timber a brio-ht 
camp fire reflected upon the water from the bank 
but when the voices of the songsters reached the 
tribulated ears of the camper, the fire was ex- 
tingished in such a hurry that a general meri- 
ment went up from the boats at the camper's ex- 
pense. We afterward learned that the camper 
was Lonesome Charley, and it was not so much 
his fear of danger as his dread of a multitude of 
uninvited, undesirable guests, that caused him to 
"douce the glim" with such alacrity. 



204 Frontier \nd L\dtan Life. 

After passing the hunter's camp we drifted out 
into the wide sluggish waters near the mouth of 
Knife river. Near dayhght the singing ceased 
and the drowsy men of war lay snoring in the 
bottoms of their frail hulls unconscious of danger 
from pointed snag or frowning sawyer. Our own 
boat had drifted on a sand bar in the middle of 
the river, and we awoke to feel the chilliness of 
the early morning air, and hnd that our late joyful 
comrades in arms were scattered along many 
miles of misty surface, each separate boat having 
drifted hither and thither at the caprice of the 
currant and sport of the breeze. 

Just as the sun was rising, we drifted under 
the sharp bluffs that mark the ruins of old Fort 
Clark, a place sacred and sad to the memory of 
the Mandans. In rounding the point at the mouth 
of the creek that empies into the river below the 
old village, we espied our whilom commander, 
and carrier of the pipe. He had landed from his 
boat and was perched upon a large beaver house 
leaning over with one ear pressed against the 
roof of the thrifty animals' plastered domicile, as if 
intently listening. So occupied was his mind that 
we passed by unnoticed, although only a few 
yards away. In about an half hour later, he came 
paddling up to us. He was blandly smiling and 
in hio-h good humor. In answer to the question 
about his posidon on the beaver house, the chief 
replied navely that he was "listening to the beaver 
talk," a remark that set the writer on a new train 



With a Gros Ventre War Partv. 205 

of thouoht, that led to some interestintr observa- 
tions on the habits of the beaver family. " At this 
time the Gros Ventre gave proof of his practical 
knowledge of the habits of these animals by ex- 
hibiting a large beaver cascass over which, he said, 
we would discuss at breakfast. 

About an hour after sunrise we pulled up oq.ir 
boats on the strand opposite Lake Mandan. While 
placing the vessels ashore for drying and harden- 
ing, the bushes parted above us, and lo, a painted 
stranger stepped out. His presence though a sur- 
prise to Williams and myself, did not seem to 
mystify the Gros Ventres. The stranger beckon- 
ed partner and myself to follow him which led to 
a dense thicket, and there stood two dirt covered 
lodges with three or four squalid inmates. We 
were strangers no longer. The man before us 
was Partisan, an Indian politician and an exiled 
pretender to the chieftainship of the Aricarees. 
No Roman senator ever poised more haughtily — 
no high church prelate more circumspect than 
this fallen brave and chief. He was a man with- 
out a country and almost without a tribe. The 
heriditary chief of the Wanderers, a large Aric- 
aree band when Lewis and Clark came up the 
river in 1804, but closed out with the small pox 
in 1842. Aricarees proper, ignored his authority. 

'Why do you go war with these bad men?" 
asked the exiled chief thoughtfully, referring to 
our gay companions in arms under thr river bank. 
"They go down the river in boats to stir up the 



2o6 Frontier xkd Lndtan Life. 

Sioux who in their turn come up here and hunt 
for the scalps for such as I. Go back, Gros Ven- 
tres, go back !" exclaimed the excited Aricaree. 

After a good feast from the Partisan's stores — 
for he was generous to prodigality — we of the war 
party put our boats in the water and sailed down , 
to the Counted Woods, where we stopped to kill 
some antelope, thence drifted several miles further 
down the river and went into camp. 

The Gros'^l^entres military decipline became 

more stringent as we invaded the enemy's country; 

they came in contact with the frontiersman's well 

known independent notions. Thus having in view 

the time honored couplet. — 

"He who fights and runs away. . 
Will live to fight another day;" 

concluded at this juncture to divide honors with 
our warlike friends, so separated each party to 
pursue their own course of acdon. 

It was nearly two weeks after our separation, 
when one day while paddling our bull boat around 
Painted Woods lake we glanced toward the 
prairie to see a large party oi Indians heading 
for our camp. They were our Gros Ventre ex- 
comrades returning from war. They came back 
empty handed, save a pair of extra Government 
mules. Chief Gall had a large force ot his men 
on Heart river but were too watchful to be caught 
in detail and the Gros Ventres did not dare to give 
battle to such a large camp of Sioux. We gave 
them a royal feast, and thus closed the last bull 
boat war raid made by Gros Ventres against their 
old enemies. 



HALF BREED CHARLEY. 

THAT charitable sentiment, — "Blessed be the 
Peacemakers" — comes down from the dawn 
of the Christian era, and then perhaps it was but 
a borrowed expression brought back from the 
earlier ages — the days before Babylon on the 
Euphrates, or old Thebes on the Nile, became 
the seat and centre for lords of earthly greatness 
formed in human mould. However trite and beau- 
tiful the precept bearing the stamp of divine ori- 
^^in, yet occult manifestations as exhibited in the 
everyday side of life, would rather impress 
us that "persecuted are the peacemakers," — if we 
look beyond a small band of philanthopists who 
would seem to carry the impress of the Deity in 
their chosen work — and face the great rabble de- 
nominated the progressive and enlightened Chris- 
tian world. 

To those of our readers familiar with histor- 
ical writings concerning the American aborigine, 
they will have noticed the unhappy ending ot so 
many of those Indians who fell martyrs to their 
faith in the rightiousness of the peacemakers* 
role. The Indians converted to the Christian 
cause, and from among its accepted tenets of 
faith "blessed be the peacemakers" was an allure- 
ing call to the well disposed, only to fmd them- 
selves entrapped in a network of studied decep- 
tion by these self-satisfied, heaven seeking Chnst- 
ains. and instead of the promised love and kmd- 



2o8 Fkon'mer and Indian Life. 

ness became the objects of hatred, envy and mah- 
cious persecution, helpless and hopeless in iheu" 
endeavors to ward themselves from cruel wrong. 

Bcginnuig with the avaricious and dispoiic Spain- 
ards in their dealings with the meek and lowly 
natives of tropical Hayti, and from thence the 
the same system among the New England puritans 
and border colonists, pursuing without mercy In- 
dians, who would fain stop to change faith and 
worship the Dcvinity in a common alter on bend- 
ed knees side by side with th'^ir paie-faced brodi- 
crs. though in so doing became surer and easier 
prey to Christains of the Cotton Mather, the 
Paxon boys, the Col. Jessup and Col. Chivington 
kind, who were aided, abetted or condoned in 
their wicked work by reputable Christians — as 
witness the Pequot extermination, — the massacre 
of the Christian Indians on the Conestoga — the 
butchery of the Christian converts at the Mora- 
vian missions on the Muskingum, to say nothing 
about the present day rapacity of officers high up 
in the administration of affairs of the American 
government — professing Christians — but who have 
used their official power to the uttermost limit to 
despoil the remnants of the red Indian race of 
the remaining^ acres that enxiron their homes. 

It is useles to attempr the discussion of this 
subject in these cramped pages. It would take 
volumes to spread out in detail and illustrate 
the sickening incidents that have transpired both 
to the white and red race as the latter turned 
again and again to resent being jossled S(3 rudely. 



Half Bkked Charley. 209 

In the opening sketch we have told the story 
of the disarming of Inkpaduta's band by the set- 
tlers of Smithland ana vicinity, in Iowa state 
c!urinor the month of February, 1*^57. In all that 
crew of rough bordermen who had taken leading 
part in that unjustifiable transaction, namely, Capt. 
Oran Smith, Lieutenants Will and Abram Turman, 
the Hone boys, Albert and Martin Livermore, 
the Meads, Tom Burns, Wellington, Jackson and 
Ira Price, not one among them had a word to say 
against the only English talking red in Inkpaduta's 
band, viz: — Half Breed, or as he was sometimes 
termed — Indian Charley. During the disarming, 
he plead for his Indian friends, and when the bad 
work was over he tried every art of pursusion to 
moiify the deep feeling of resentment against the 
white settlers that^the act had engendered in the 
breast of the savages. Being a good trapper, he 
redoubled his exertions, as they moved slowly up 
stream, that as little distress as possible might 
follow the loss of their guns, 

But strive how he may to avert it, the storm 
would come. Night after night he combatted the 
revengeful Star-in- Forhead, the real leader in the 
after work of butchery. They had settled upon 
revenge, and Half Breed Charley and one com- 
panion who had taken sides with him were told 
to leave camp and not return. This scene took 
place at Peterson where the first serious overt act 
occurred which preceded the massacre of the set- 
tlers at Okaboji and Spirit Lake. 



2IO Frontier and Indian Liff.. 

To the home of Ira Waterman, on Waterman 
Creek, the two Indian refugees repaired and told of 
their troubles. Charley said that Inkpaduta's band 
had "bad hearts" and he would leave them. Him- 
self and companion had a few traps, and in a bend 
above Cherokee where beavers were plenty, they 
would build themselves a cabin and live. Ira 
Waterman, recalling the story, after forty years 
had passed, said not one settler in all that valley 
doubted the loyalty or peaceful intentions of Half 
Breed Charley and partner. Settlers often came 
to their lowly hut, and noted their thrift and a large 
batch of well handled fnrs. Every guest was in- 
vited to share their humble cheer of roast deer 
ribs and beaver tail soup. 

One day two white men called at the Water- 
man place. They were strangers there. Tht:y 
claimed to be trappers yet had only guns to show 
their insigna of vocation. 

'*We hear there is some good trapping grounds 
down this side of Cherokee," said one of the 
strangers, "and I guess we'll go down and try and 
make a catch!" 

A few days later the strangers returned up river 
with a few traps and a large, well cleaned, nicely 
stretched lot of dried peltries. They did not 
tarry. Neither did they talk. 

A later guest, at Charley's camp, found no one 
to receive. Some moulded provisions — a few 
rusted dishes — some stained bed clothing. That 
was all. But mute as was the settler's reception, 
and silent his entertainment- -to him the story 
of a gruesome tragedy had been told. 



THIRD GROUP. 




Fred. F. Girard, 



One of the Most Prominent Indian Traders of 
Early Days ox the Upper Missouri. 



MASSACRE ON BURNT CRSEK BAR. 

ACROSS the mighty arch spanning the River 
Missouri, on the Northern Pacific line, peo- 
ple daily pass and repass serenely, hundreds of feet 
above the- swirling- waters, famed since human kind 
first settled upon its banks as "the river that never 
voluntarily gives up its dead." The jarring of the 
bumpers; grating oi iron wheels and gliding on by 
the iron knit stanchions, help remove that insecure 
leeiing which otherwise might possess the passen- 
ger in the ride across this river, high up in air. To 
a tourist visiting the lands of the Upper Missouri 
for the first time, the crossing of this stream is an 
event of inter:\st, and indeed, it is never mono- 
tonous, not even to the trainmen whose duty it is 
lo cross and recross over the huge structure daily. 
Once upon the bridge seated in the moving car, 
the passenger whose window will allow a glance 
up stream, can view about one half mile away, on 
ihe east bank the southermost point of a grove of 
limber that extends as far as the eye can see. A low 
lying sand bar skirts the timber for two or three 
miles. Straiige is the Missouri's record of chang- 
ing of water channels; changing of banks and 
bars; changing even of timbered points that dis- 
appear as in a day, and the surging current or some 
bare desert of sand alone mark the site. But 



13 Frontier and Indian Like 

the line of timber we have just described — Burnt 
Creek Bar — remains much the same that it did in 
the early days of August, 1863. The bar has 
widened some since that date — the waters recede- 
ing. But a little narrow shoot that cut through 
the bar in i' 63, is closed; tempests of sand 
had rubbed out its sinuous lines as completely as 
though it were hgures sponged from a slate. 

Now we will go back to the beginning of this 
chronicle — or at least — the beginning of the end. 

One day in the early part of July, 1863, there 
elided out from the Fort Benton landing a well 
built flat bottomed boat containing in all tv, enty 
men, one woman and baby, and one little girl. 
They were, for the most part, successful miners^ 
had made their fortunes among the rich placer 
mines, known in those days as Bannock. To par- 
ties at Fort Benton at the time of launching, and 
who were familiar with some of the miners, said that 
in addition to what each of these intending voya- 
gers carried around their bodies in belts, $90,000 
in dust was placed in prepared augur holes and 
tightly plugged in the stanchions of the boat. A 
small cabin was built as shelter ft)r the woman, her 
baby and the little girl. 

As the boat sped swiftly along down the rapid 
stream, propelled by oars in its intervals of slug- 
gishness, or pushed forward with the swiftness of 
a wounded duck in a favoring breeze. The home 
sick miners and this lone woman had little to oc- 
cupy their thoughts in their cramped room save 



'Wf 







rt^t^E^ 





Girard's Trading Post at Old Ft. Berthold. 



Massacre on Burnt Creek Bar. 14 

day dreams of the coming joy and welcome in their 
first and best homes. They could tell of their 
long trials and adventures in savage lands; could 
show heaps of glittering gold, as the price of past 
denials and purchase of future comforts in the 
new lile of indolence and ease. No dark shadow, 
no bony finger; no feverish dream; no knocks of 
warning as tar as we may know, stayed the hands 
or lent dismal, uncanny thoughts in the minds of 
this mountain crew as they rode on towards the 
realm bordering shadowy lands. 

On the 8th day of August the boat reached Fort 
Berthold. They landed to purchase some sup- 
plies. They were here warned by F. F. Girard, the 
trader in charge, that it would be dangerous to 
attempt to pass through the Painted Woods coun- 
try at the time, as Sibley's army had driven the 
Sioux to the Missouri at that place, and Aricaree 
runners reported them encamped among the tim- 
ber bends on both sides of the river. A consul- 
tation was held on the boat and it was finally con- 
cluded this was a trader's ruse to hold them there 
for extortion purposes. An old grey headed man 
dressed in black, dissented, though he said but 
litde. The boat crew drifted out of sight of Fort 
Berthold on the afternoon of the 9th. They were 
joined at departure by a Canadian-Frenchman, an 
ex-employee of the American Fur Company, and 
familiar with Indian ways. It has been asserted, in 
this man's possession was the key of a great rays- 
terv. If so, the key is lost and seal unbroken. 



15 Fk().\iii:k \m> Im'Ian Lifk. 

That evening- they encamped near the ruins 
of old Fort Clark, one of the first, Indian trading- 
posts along- the Upper Missouri. The balmy Au- 
gust breeze played about the sleepers, under the 
moon's shade at the old ruins. The noisy swirls 
on the river; the hooting- owls — lone guardians of 
these decaying habitations where misery and death 
had so long mutually sat in imperious sway in 
the fear haunted old homes of the Mandans and 
Aricarees. The cool grey light of morning bid the 
boat crew cooks prepare the breakfast, and even 
before the brioht liaht of the mornino- sun o-fist- 
ened on their oar blades, they had rounded the 
hieh bluff and cut banks that mark the creek 
"where the Crows and Gros Ventres parted," 
and stood out upon a.n open river lacing- the 
distant domes ot the Square Buttes, and the 
eagerly looked for, though dreaded Painted Woods 
came to their view. 

During the summer and autuinn of 1868, Avhile 
publishing the Dakota Democrat, at Yankton ilie 
old Territorial capital, anci as occasional correspon- 
dent for the Chicago Times, 1 made frequent trips 
in the interest of these two publications amoiig 
the lower Sioux agencies and some of the military 
posts established in the territory contingent ih're- 
to. Among the most interesting of the agencies 
at this time was the Santee Sioux, established on 
the east bank of the Missouri river, and a few^ 
miU^s below where the rapid Niobrara cnipiics its 



Massacre on Burnt Creek Bar. i6 

waters in this inland artery. It was this tribe that 
was responsible for ihe Indian outbreak of 1862, 
in the northwest prairie region, and commonly 
known as the "Minnesota massacre." A large 
majority of the remnants of the tribe here gath- 
ered were woman and children, the males having 
principally fallen at the hands ot avenging troops 
that hunted them down wheresoever they had fled 
after the destruction of the settlers of western 
Minnesota. 

By some chance I became acquainted with a 
small, middle aged, light complexioned and very 
intelligent Santee woman, known as Red Blanket. 
Like many others of that tribe she had passed 
through a terrible ordeal since the morning of the 
1 8th of August, 1.S62. In her verbal chronicle 
of those days, I became interested in her version 
of the massacre of the mining crew at the mouth 
of Burnt creek in the early days of August, 1863. 
For reasons unnecessairly to explain, I noted the 
woman's story down with ink and pen which have 
hertofore remained among my unpublished re- 
cords. In placing it in English I have endeavored 
to convey her simple linguistic style from the San- 
tee. We will now let her tell the story: 

"When Sibley's soldiers started back up Apple 
creek, our chiefs and head men commenced to 
look about them. We had many camps scattered 
along Heart -river and some on Square Buttes 
creek. We found no buffalo and but few elk and 
deer. th<^ Uncpapas, who had been living there, 



17 FkcN'hi-k ami Indian Live 

scared or killed everything. Three da\'.s aher the 
soldiers disappeared we commenced recrossing" 
the big river at the foot of the high bluffs. Buf- 
falo were plenty on the east side and that was why 
we returned. We made a large camp in a deej> 
coulee facing the river with some limber and a 
long sand bar in front of some low willows. Re- 
side our own (Shockape's) band were many lodges 
of both Yanktonevs and Sissetons. I think it was 
six days after our return, that in the company of 
severa.1 women, we went to the river to ba;he and 
wash some clothes. There was a narrow, switr 
running shute near shore, and beyond this a hid- 
den bar, then deep water again. On this morning 
at the entrance of the shute from main river, si: 
an old man — a Sisseton — fishinsJ The morniuLT 
was calm. I'p the river we could hear voices and 
the sound of paddles. After some time a large 
boat full of people came to view and were drift- 
ing near shore. We saw that they were white 
people, when we started to run away. At thi \ 
time they were near rifle shot of the old man. lie 
arose and made the blanket signal to keep out in 
the main stream. Next came a pufi of smoke 
and a rifle report from the boat and then the old 
man fell over. I'hen we all screamed and ran 
until we met our husbands and brothers with Av^'w 
guns, bows and arrows. Then us women hid in 
the edge ot the bushes. The long boai stopped 
in shallow water at the entrance ot the narrow 



Massacre on Burnt Creek Bar. i8 

channel. More of our people came swarming out 
from the timber and the shooting became almost 
continuous, when the loud report of cannon from 
the boat scared us all. We were afraid saldiers 
from Sibley's army njight be coming again upon 
us, the one loud report sounded over and over so 
many limes. Then came what we feared — woun- 
ded and dying men. We woman picked and car- 
ried many from the bar to the lodges up the cou- 
lee. One woman was killed in trying to save her 
husband. I had a brother killed; it sent my heart 
to the ground. .Several of our fighters procured 
logs and rolled across the bar toward the boat, 
firing from behind. Others screened along the cut 
bank of the shute. It was the middle of the after- 
noon when some one shouted that the old white 
man dressed in black had fallen. It was he who 
had killed so many of our people. He hid in 
one corner of the boat: He would rise at times 
and look abo'U him. Our warriors believed he 
was a priest or medicine man. When the shout 
went up that the medicine man was killed every 
one rushed upon the boat. All were not yet dead 
but we soon killed them. One; woman was found 
under the ]3ig box; dragged forth and cut to pie- 
ces with knives. She looked terrified but did not 
cry. A cryiiig baby was taken from her arms and 
killed. I dill not see the little girl, though she 
might have been ihf^re, for all I would know. I 
help kill the woman. They had killed my brother. 



T9 FudXllKK \M> I.MIW I.I.E 

I he boat was halt lilKnl with water. \\\c one 
shot iViMii [Ur cannon hail caus(\l it to 1 'ak an<l 
sink in shallow water, and that is why they staveJ 
until all were dead. But ihc. strangest ot all is 
yet to come. The dead btxiy of the niaa in IViack 
was no where to he tound. In the same corner 
o( the heiat lay the body ot a man with same such 
iace— -white whiskers, and lonj;; white ](^cks of 
hair. Hut he lav dressed in blood sj)atterd yel 
U>\v buckskin shirt and pants. We sirippcxl many 
bodies of their clothes, and in so doin^; founil belts 
of what we thought was wet or bad powder. It 
-was thrown away. We lost near thirty men alto 
o-ether. -Some did not die rioht awav but those 
who did were placed in thi^ trees beyond the village. 
The old Sisseton went to his death trying to save 
troul>le and li\es by warning the boatmen to put 
out in the main stream, that they might quietly pass 
by unnoticed. [he while men mistook the mo- 
tive, perhaps, so killed him and paid torteit by 
losing their own lives. bhose who know the Sis- 
seton best, say this was the motive that imp( lied 
the signal. After many days crying for our tlead, 
■we separated and went many ways, (^ur band 
went to the Devil's Lake." 

Ilius concluded the Santee woman, as unfold 
ing the Indian verson o( the massacre of the 
miners on l.^mnt Creek Bar, and cause that led 
thereto. 



Massacfu-: on Burnt Creek Bar. 20 

In the autumn of ICS76, while taking;- a few days 
huntino^ trip w(?st of the Missouri, I was joined 
at the Square lUittes by two lodges of Aricarees. 
These consisted of the families and some friends 
of two brothers — high up in the tribe — known as 
the Whistling Bear and Sitting Bull. Among the 
party was a partly educated Aricaree woman called 
by her white acquaintances, "Long Hair Mary." 
She had a fair command of English pickfxl up in a 
Mission. While encamped at the mouth of Deer 
creek several days, game was so plentiful that but 
little exertion was required to get all the deer, an- 
telope or elk meat wanted. During an interval 
ot leisure, and not being very proficient in the 
Aricaree tongue, I called on the good offices of 
Mary to assist in the interpretation of the following 
statement from the Whistling Bear, concerning 
the concluding events immediately following the 
massacre of the miners on Burnt Creek Bar: 

''About two weeks after the white men be- 
longing to the boating party were killed on Burnt 
Creek Bar, some Uncpapa friends of the Mandans 
came into our village at b'ort Berthold and told us 
about it Girard the trader, being my brother-in- 
law, and to whom I consulted about the Uncpapas' 
story, advised my g(;tting together a small band 
of trusty men and go hunt up the place where the 
fight took place. He explained furth(;r, that un- 
less some of the Sioux knew gold dust l^y the 
color, there must be abundant gold dust, either 



2 1 ['"koNriKk ANjj 1m HAN Life 

laying abouL among effects in the boat or in b(;lt.; 
npon the bodies of the slain and then I was shown 
a sample so that no mistake would be made. 

In the early morning of the closing days of the 
"cherry moon," we left our village at Tort Ber- 
thold for the perilous trip. There were ten of us 
in all. We followed the banks of the winding 
river close, and on the third day we noticed th(i 
soaring of buzzards on the river near the mouth 
of Burnt Creek. Not a breeze was blowino^, nor 
a cloud in all the blue sky. A misty line of fog, 
that followed the curved line of the channel wa- 
ters at sunrise, rose high in air as we reached the 
sand bar at Burnt Creek. The big black appearing 
boat was seen at last. It was partly sunken. We 
saw no cannon. The bodies of the dead, partly 
dismembered were being led upon by buzzards. 
Upon some of them we found belts filled with gold 
dust. Other bodies near by, the sacks or belts of 
buckskin had been cut open and contents spilled 
upon the sand. At the boat we found a coffee 
pot which we filled with gold dust. There 
were no Sioux seen. We visited their deserted 
carwp in the coulee back from the timber grove. 
In the trees were many blanketed dead. We then 
made our way back to our village at Fort Ber- 
thold. To Girard we gave the gold. He in turn 
presented me with a large horse, and a few pres- 
ents and a feast to my companions of the journey." 

With this close the story of Whistling Bear in 



Massacre on Burnt Creek Bar. 22 

connection with the orold of the ill-fated miners. 
Big John and the Soldier two worthy Aricarees 
with a long number of years to their credit in the 
Government service as scouts, made several hunt- 
ing trips — in their younger days — along the bot- 
tom lands of Burnt Creek. Over a year after the 
tragedy on the sand bar the boat of the murder- 
ed miners lay embedded in the sand, and to this 
day far down in its sand covered grave it yet re- 
mains, and will abide until the Missouri at that 
point again changes its sand devouring course or 
the greed of gold raise willing hands to uncover 
the undisturbed and unclaimed gold secreted in 
the buried boat's rugged stanchions. 



m> 



.# 




Little Crow. 

Leader of the Santee. Sioux Outbreak^ 18G2, 



1 




Aeicaree Hunting Lodge. 



TH3 RENEGADE CHIEF. 

AFEVV miU-s soiiih of the old Pawnee Iiidiaii 
Agency in the State of Nebraska, there is a 
small winding stream putting into the Loup river, 
whose sluggish placid waters with its mirrored 
surface, had suo^o-ested to the Indians, lon^f aero, 
the name of the Looking Glass. 

On the Indian trail leadino- between thi'S now 
abandoned Pawnee villagre and the town of Colum- 
bus at the junction of the Loup and Platte rivers, 
and within four miles of the last named town, 
there resided in the year 1864, and long years be- 
fore and since — and, for all the narrator knows 
sull abide there, — an energetic, thrifty and push- 
inor farmer and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Patrick 
Murray. 

In that year 1864, Mr. Murray had a contract 
with the Government for putting up the hay for 
the Pawnee Agency, and as early as the 8th of 
July, his party was encamped and at work on the 
meadows at the mouth of Looking Glass creek. 
Mrs. Murray was in charge of the camp, her hus- 
band havinor been summoned on a business en- 
gagement a day or two previous to the then cap- 
ital city of Omaha. 

The make up of the hay party besides Mrs. 
Murray, was her brother, one other young man; a 



2 25 Frontier \nd Indian Life. 

sixteen year old boy and a frontier rambler named 
Sam. The man Sam had come down the Platte 
river trail a short time previous, and though o^iven 
to but little talk, acknowledofed that he had been 
hunting and trapping with the northern branch of 
the Arapahoe Indians in the neighborhood of the 
Big Horn mountains. The man had some notice- 
able peculiarities that were remembered of him at 
the Murray farm house. He was a fatalist. He 
was born in Illinois state, but from as early as he 
could remember he believed he was marked out 
to lead an Indian's life. He had simply done 
what he could not help, he said, in living with the 
Arapahoes. Fhough at times, communicative 
he was given much to solitary brooding. 

About sundown of July 8th, the Looking Glass 
hay party rested from work to take supper. Paw- 
nee women from the Agency, who had on previous 
days been within sight o( the camp gathering 
plumb blaus or tipsinee, on this afternoon were 
seen to leave the hills fully two hours earlier than 
usual, and then in a body, Sam remarked on 
this movement as something out of the common, 
and believed they must have had a scare. Those in 
camp nodced that Sam's demeanor become rest- 
less, and was frequently raising his hand over his 
eyes and scanning the hills. All at once Sam's 
attention was rivited to one spot. A solitary 
horseman was seen to ride upon the point of a 
ridge overlooking and in plain view of the camp. 
Two or three minutes later the horseman was 
joined by a companion. Then came others in 



The Renegade Chief. 226 

single file until six mounted men stood abreast. 
In Indian file they slowly approached the camp. 
Sam watched them intently all the while with- 
out speaking. The formost horseman started up 
on a canter followed in like speed by the rest 
of the band. When within five hundred yards of 
the hay camp the horsemen now running in curved 
circles circumventing the camp, set up some blood 
curdling yells. Sam's face turned livid, and 
moving excitedly to his companions exclaimed 
with a choking voice: 

"They are Arapahoes and I am a dead man !" 
Another minute, they had contracted the circle 
in tightening coils, and were upon the terrified 
and defenseless haymakers. Every Indian war- 
rior had his bow strung and bent and every death 
bearing shaft was sent into Sam's body, until he 
reeled and fell, feebly uttering the words : 
"I'ts Bob — I thought so — I thought so." 
After Sam had fallen, the bowmen turned their 
attention to Murray's brother-in-law and the other 
man who were also shot until dead. The boy es- 
caped by hiding under a hay cock at the outset, 
and Mrs. Murray, thinking on the first rush that the 
red marauders only wanted the stock was out and 
endeavoring to hold them, when a stray arrow hit 
her, and falling in the long grass kept quiet. 
They rode away after securing the scalps of the 
murdered men. Several years , later while the 
writer was residing: with the Murrays, the lady was 
frequently suffering from effects of this arrow 
which had without much doubt been poisoned. 



227 Frontier wd I.nt»iax Liff. 

If Sam was corrt'ct, here was a war party of six 
Arapahoe-s who had come from the main camp six 
hundred miles away, rode up within sight of thrc;(.' 
thousand of their enemies — the Pawnees, — and at 
the risk of almost sure discovery and death, <li- 
rected their attack on a hay camp although thc-y 
could have plenty of opportunities to hav(; killed 
white people for hundreds of miles along the 
Platte river trail, and which tor the most part 
passed through country claimed by them or terri- 
tory routiguous thereto. The ferocity which they 
attacked Sam, their united action on him, the recog- 
nition and dying declaration, made it evident to 
the survivors who lived to tell of this tragedy on 
the Looking Grass, that it was Sam they were 
after, and on him they satisfied their vengeance. 

About the last week in April, 1869, the narra- 
tor h>ecame a passenger from the town of Yankton 
on an up-bound steamer, — the fine side wheeler 
Henry M. Shrieve, of St. Louis, Missouri. One 
evening while our boat was puffing along up 
stream in the neighborhood of old Fort George, 
we landed at a rather enticing looking wood pile 
for fuel. Before landing we had noticed from the 
boat about, perhaps, a mile below, a man and two 
Indian woman on the sand bar, sitting beside a 
skiff tied at anchor, all three seemingly busy in 
the cheerful and necesssary occupation of eating 
their evening meal. 

On inquiry at the woodyard, the proprietor 



'I~iii: I\i:N'i;(;.\i)i', Ciiikf. 228 

averred ihat ihey \V(!re a "([iieer set." Although 
a smatterinLi;^ linguist of many tribes, he had found 
these Indian woman could talk a language that he 
could noi: understand, "and the buck who might 
have onc(; passed for a white man would not talk 
at all. " They had come down th(? rivc^r from the 
nordi. he furthermore said, and were evidently 
afraid of the Sioux — so much indeed, that they 
done most of their traveling at night. 

Plenty of hnsure while the boat crew were 
packing on wood, and the promptings of an idle 
curiosity, caused me take a walk back to where 
these grotesque strangers were sitting. As far as 
looks go, ihc; man was a hard and tough appear- 
in^r one. He was dressed in a suit of dirty bleached 
buckskin; wore a long wig of matted hair and a 
l(uig busy beard. His dark grey eyes gave forth 
a cold glassy stare. He deigned not to notice my 
approach 

"(iood evening," 1 said, whcMi I stepped up in 
front of them. ".\ fiiKMivening; traveling down 
the river 1 suppose?" 

The man made no reply, Init raising himself up 
to a standing position, drew fcM'th a huge dag- 
ger from a heavily beaded scabbard that was 
tucked under his body belt, and with his eyes now 
glistening like the star orbed basilisk, pointed the 
glittering blade with an out stretched arm toward 
the full faced "empress of the night," then just 
raising in her full majesty ab()v(; the tree tops, 
hissed out : 



229 . Frontier and Indian Lifk. 

''There is the moon !" 

The elder of the two females then jumped to 
her feet and without speaking, tapped her finger 
on the forehead with a rolling motion — the Indian 
sign o( crazy. With a short mental conflict of 
ideas, whether the good woman meant the ques- 
tioner or the questioned, I returned to the steam- 
boat at the wood landing. 

The interview was short, it was true., but rhe 
raising of that dagger toward the moon revealed 
an idendty he could not well hide. That grue- 
some weapon was held in a thumbless hand. It 
was my first and last intervietv with the murder- 
ous white chief of an outlawed band of the north- 
ern or Big Horn Arapahoes. 

Arriving, at the P^ort Berthold Agency in May. 
— some twenty days after the pithy interview with 
the thumbless renegade — I learned the trio had 
wintered in a woodyard about four miles above 
the Agency. He had a small contract with Gluck 
the woodyard proprietor to chop some cord wood. 
The contract was faithfully carried out on the ren- 
egade's part thanks to thejndustry and muscular 
development of his oldest wife. One peculiarity 
of the renegade was very noticable. Wherever 
he went he carried two long buckskin sacks filled 
with some heavy material. They were about six 
inches in circumference and eighteen inches long. 
He spoke of them as his "medicine." Other 



riiF, IvKM-c \i)i-: Ciii!:i-. 230 

(liohty api)(\irino- actions altracted attention with 
p(!Ople whom he came in contact with, and while 
many thought his vag-aries were "put on" there 
were others who thought the eccentric woodchop- 
per was httle better than an unbalanced lunatic- 
Early in the spring an attache came down from 
Fort Feck, the then leading trading post of the 
great Durfee & Feck company, who stated that 
the "crazy" man was no other than Hob North 
the noted renegade of the Big Horn country. He 
had been recognized while landing at that post 
the previous autumn, by some of Crazy Horse's 
band of Ogallalla's who were on a tradin^j;^ trip at 
that place. He had been accused of assisting in 
the destruction of iht- u-.n miner's on the Yellow- 
stone near thc^ mouth ot Fowder river, in 1863, 
and was the leader of the Arapahoe contingent of 
hostiles who assisted at the massacre of the eighty 
soldiers near b\)rt Fhil Kearney, in 1866, and 
mention was made at the time by the wife of Com- 
mander Carrington who afterward wrote a full 
account of that tragedy in the wilderness, in her 
book — 'Absaraka or Home ot the Crows." 

At Baker's stockade lower Fainted Woods, on 
New Year's day 1872, the thermometer, hanging 
on the outward gate, registered forty-tive degrees 
below zero, at sunrise. In company with two 
companions — Trapper Williams and Charley Grey 
— we were huddling around a small fire in the 
cook room, but occasionally taking turns on an 



231 Fkontiek 'VND In man Ltik. 

outside stroll as a kind of a "walkino- delegate," 
as the time was then up to expect the arrival of 
fifteen lodges of Yanktonay Sioux under chief 
Black Eyes, a supposed hostile band coming- down 
from the: buffalo range. Word had reached us by 
carrier from the commandment at Fort Stevenson 
to that effect, with the additional admonition to 
be on our guard. Our nearest neighbors at that 
time was nearly forty miles distant, therefore hav- 
ing no reliance but our rifles and our iuch'ment, a 
little caution was deemed advisable. 

Toward noon on that day a warm chinnook 
wafted its soft warm breath down along the ice- 
bound and snow covered Missouri. Out then 
from their hollow snuggeries among the ancient 
oaks and cottonwoods, came the big eyed, [)ointed 
eared cat owls, with their dismal hooting — ihe red 
Indian's danger signal. Sharp reports coming 
from among the thawing cottonwoods like ihe 
opening attack of skirmishers in battle; the shrill 
chirping of the meat-eating magpie, the Hitting of 
the chickadees, the yelping of the never resting 
coyotes. Added to these confusion of noises, 
the effects of the dense air descending through 
air holes and huge fissures ot the ice along ihe 
frozen river which produced stranpe moaning 
sounds like the subdued stress and strains of a 
hurricane in some dense forest of cedar or pine. 
Such scenes and sounds in an almost uninhabited 
wilderness, bring on betimes an indefinable bode- 
ing of fear and harassed feeling of inky gloom. 



TiiK Rknkcade Chief. 232 

In vain our optics carc^fully scanned everythincr 
strange or heretofore unnoticed to the north .of 
us, for a sight of the expected hostiles. A ghmpse 
of them would have been a reHef — for what fear 
strains on the imagination Hke a danger in hiding? 

As the wind grew warmer the snow commenced 
melting very fast, the air took a hazy hue; 
snags and drifts on distant bars became to the 
overstrained imagination, moving objects. Black 
lines now followed the sand bars under the Square 
Buttes, and around the river line of the Aragara- 
hoe. 

F~rom the south and not from the north as we 
had expected, moving objects finally came in view. 
All three ol us as usual on a fresh alarm came to 
the river bank to watch close the movements of 
the strangers. Two persons with a pony hitched 
in travaux were plainly observed, when some one 
said : 

"That is Long Feather the peacemaker." 

But as they came up to us, they proved to be a 
white man with an Indian woman. They came up 
to the stockade and the man asked permission to 
remain a few days as they were tired out, having 
wandered up from the Indian Territory, and were 
endeavoring to make their way up to Fort Bel- 
knap near the British line. He was recognized 
as a harmless kind of a fellow that formerly re- 
sided in the kort .Sully neighborhood, while the 
red woman was readily known at first sight o be 
the youngest \\\h' of Bob North the renegad?. chiet. 



233 * F"rontier \^y) Indian Life. 

During their several days stay at the stockade, 
sonie ghmpses of the renegade North's Hfe was 
gathered from this Indian woman, that explained 
many happenings on the western frontier that 
had heretofore been inexplicable to many of the 
bordermen. The young woman was the daughter 
of Many Bears, the noted head chief of the Gros 
Ventres of the Prairies, — kindred of the Arapa- 
hoes. On one occasion while North and his band 
were visiting ivith the Gros Ventres, North, in 
Indian fashion purchased the young girl from her 
father and made her his second wife. 

The man Sam, spoken of in the firsu part of 
this sketch, had come to the Arapahoe village in 
North's company, but had as a general thing re- 
fused to accompany North and his band whicli much 
of their time were raiding the emigrant trail along 
the North Platte river, or beyond in the Ute coun- 






Renegade Chief's hand atiacK' a train. 



Till' Rfnf(;ai)k Chief. 234 

try at the head of the Laramie, or abotit the parks 
of the main range. Sam had been- killed by Bob 
as already described, by the Arapahoe band but for 
what special reason she did not know. They were 
over two weeks on the trail when they came back 
with Sam's blood matted scalp. Sam had been 
located by Nordi on a spying trip to the settle- 
ment while his band was in hiding among the hills. 
Thompson concluded his wife's story. He had 
incidently met the outlaw and family a few days 
after the writer's interesting and pointed interview 
with him on on the sand bar near old Fort George 
At meeting, the arrogance of the outlaw was sub- 
dued and his mental condition took a normal turn. 
Hundreds of suspicious Sioux were after him, and 
if caught he would fare badly. 

To guide him swiftly out of the country and to 
be his companion, North made Thompson the gen- 
erous offer of his youngest wife. The tempting 
prize was accepted and the four pulled out for the 
Indian Terrritory. 

It was near the Kansas south line, at the mid- 
night hour, during a rainy, uncomfortable October 
storm, 1869, that brought North to the end of 
his rop(^ The outlaw's party was heading for the 
camp of the southern Arapahoes, and were rest- 
ing as best they could from the buffiting of the 
storm without their tent, when a body o( men — 
vigilantes or robbers, the survivors could never 
tell — surrounded them and laid their clinched lists 
upon the renegade chief with the remark: 



235 Frontier and Indian Life. 

"North you scoundrely renegade we have \-()ii 
at last." 

North was "ied, hands and feet, and dragged to 
a tree and hanged. The Arapahoe wife fought 
wnth the fury of a hyena, and shared her white 
husband's merited doom; a pitying tear to wifely 
loyalty that forced her across the dark river in the 
company of her pale faced mate. 

The lynching party secured the "medicine" 
sacks from the outlaw and made way with them. 
The pouches undoubtedly contained gold and most 
probably was taken from the bodies or effects of 
the murdered miners of Powder river or elsewhere. 
While the detection of North by the Kanzas 
lynchers remains a mystery, the most probable 
theory is that he had been shadowed from the 
Upper Missouri country. 

Thompson and his Indian wife were not dis- 
turbed by the midnight raiders but ordered under 
threats to return northward at once, to which they 
readily complied. 

After a tew days rest at the Baker stockade. 
Thompson and his w^ife started out on their jour- 
ney, but came across Charley Reynolds then hunt- 
ing around Lake Mandan. The pair became, l)y 
easy persuasion, camp keeper for ihe noted hunt- 
er and served him faithfully for some months. 
"Em," as her husband affectionately called her 
had .the fair complexion of the tribes of the far 
north. .\t the time of which w^e are writing, she 
was al)out twenty years of ai>(\ She could talk 



Thk Renegade Chief. 2^6 



J' 



a little English, and it was pathetically interesting 
to see the painstaking efforts she made to imitate 
the civilized waj's of a good housewife. 

While returning from a trapper's "sign-up" on 
Grennell creek, above the White Earth river, in 
the autumn of 1875, I accidently met Charley Rey- 
nolds in the company of Orvill Grant, brother of 
President Grant, and Trader Parkin, of the Stand- 
ing Rock Agency, who were on their way to Fort 
Belknap, the Agency of the River Crows and 
Gros Ventres of the Prairie. 

After their return I again met Reynolds, this time 
at Fort Berthold where he gave an account of a 
closing glimpse of the remaining characters of 
this sketch. After their arrival at Belknap and 
rested som^nvhat, Reynolds said he naturally in- 
quired for his quondam campkeepers of the Lake 
Mandan hunt — "Em" and her husband. He was 
told that the pair had arrived there all right, but 
the chief Many Bear, P^m's father, and all his fam- 
ily and the principal part of his tribe had died 
durinp; the small pox epidemic of 1869-70. Some 
Agency employee pointed out a place beyond the 
Port wJ-ierc Thompson's remains were quietly 
resting, and that Em was vtny sick at that time 
in a lodge not far away. 

While moving among a group of lodges near 
the place pointed out by the employee, he heard 
the familiar \oice of the one he was seeking. It 
was in broken and feeble tones, and before the 



237 Frontier ^^nd Indian Life. 

sympathetic hunter entered the lodge the sufferer 
repeated planitively : 

"Oh, Thompson ! Oh, my Thompson, come." 
When Reynolds looked about him within the 
lodge, the sick woman lay curled up in a well worn 
buffolo robe, absolutely alone, and apparently, fast 
passing away. Without M^ere merry, roystering 
voices of health and hope; within the rasping- 
cough; the muffled sobs She made no sign of re- 
cognition as her former employer and good friend 
raised the lap oi robe from her face, and bent 
soothingly over her, but kept on repeating in a 
pleading way: — "Oh, Thompson ! Oh my Thomp- 
son, come." Poor dying girl your cry was for 
naught. Your Thompson's body was already 
mouldering with the dust. 





A Trio of I^pper Yanktoney Sioux. 



BUCKSKIN JOS. 

THE American wild Indian, in custom, usually 
bestows some name on his child early in life, 
but that name is sometimes changed afterward to 
some peculiarity of character, or habit of the in- 
dividual, and if a boy, some after achivement in 
war or hunting. When fame once acquired under 
a particular name the cognoman so bestowed, be- 
comes permanent. 

The average white frontierman, in spite of his 
oft expressed antipathy to the general character 
and customs of the red race, has meantime un- 
consciously copied many of the Indian's habits 
and peculiarities; among them the custom of 
bestowing a name on some newcomer in the 
neighborhood, suited to that stranger's style of 
action, habits of dress or whatever else impressed 
the aforesaid self constituted board of critical "old- 
timers." 

It was indeed an uninteresting section of the 
wild west that did not, — sometime in its history — 
produce a local famed "Buckskin Joe." He ap- 
pears in various disguises and characteristics in 
the early annals of I'exas, California, Nevada, 
Oregon and Colorado. 

The Buckskin Joe of the Upper Missouri river 
country, was duly christened by the afore-mention- 



239 Frontier ^nd 1m)ia.\ Lifk. 

ed "old timers" when he appeared among tht^m 
in 1868, a gaudily and tastefully uniformed "ten- 
derfoot" in the habilments of the bad man of the 
border. He was about eighteen years of age, 
and had come out from his home in far New Eng- 
land to visit his father who was in the Govern- 
ment service at one of the military posts in 
Montana. 

Youthful Joseph had an impressionable mind. 
From the forward cabin of an elegant steamer, he 
saw a new manner of life and in strange contrast 
with his former surrounding in his eastern natal 
place. He saw vast tracts of land on either side 
of him which seemed as trackless as the sandy 
deserts in the Soudan wastes of Africa. He saw. 
as the boat plowed the channel waters of endless 
swirls like the proud crested swan, — wild animals 
start from their willow coverts and flee in affright 
from the strange noises of the huge paddle 
wheels and escaping steam of the boiler. He 
saw at long intervals along the banks of the wide 
river, a strange colored race of people living in 
skin lodges, or in houses shaped like an inverted 
wooden bowl. He saw at long stretches, log shacks 
at convenient places, where wood was cut in mea- 
sured lengths and piled up in long ricks for the 
passing steamers, the work being done by a class 
o( men, that appeared to him a cross between 
these wdld denizens of the skin teepee and his 
own people. He observed how^ free and untram- 
meledWere the lives they led, wilhont the con- 



Buckskin Joe. 240 

straints of society and the dubious dodgeings to 
"keep straight" and avoid the besetting net work 
of the intracies of the law, as he had seen in 
places back in a land where high pressure civiliza- 
tion ruled. He saw the hunter, trapper and the 
wolfer togged up as fanciful and showy as the red 
dude of an Indian village, and their mettled steeds 
that they bestrode in their prairie wanderings 
were decked out in paint and feathers as was the 
favorite war ponies of their red rivals. 

These varying scenes and moods of life were 
presented to Joseph in an endless turn of kaleid- 
oscopic views as the steamer puffed and blowed 
against the stiff June currant that flooded down 
from the snowy sides of the Rocky mounrains. 
But his awakening mind settled on the one point, 
— that a future hunter's career was his destiny. 

About these times, (1868) steamboating on the 
Upper Missouri river had reached its zenith. 
Boats coming up from St. Louis were loaded with 
passengers for the new gold fields of Montana 
and Idaho. The steamers were provided with well 
furnished cabins and state rooms. A good larder 
being indispensible on so long a journey, induce- 
ments were held out to the woody ard men of the 
upper country to furnish fresh meat as well as 
wood for the passing boats. As the timbered 
points from Fort Randall to Ft. Benton at that time 
contained large numbers of deer and elk, and 
the prairies for the greater part of the same dis- 
tance ranged numerous herds of antelope, be- 



241 FkoN'iiKk \Nr) Indian Lifk. 

sides occasional droves of buffaloes, the task of 
plentifully supplying the boats with fresh wild 
meats was not a difficult one. 

Almost the first act in his hunting commence- 
ment Joseph hired out to the boat captains as 
"meat maker" on their passage through the wild 
game section. His passage secure, a good table 
to sit down to at regular intervals to stay a healthy 
appetite; credit at the bar on the prospective roll 
of deer and antelope hides, was a self satisfied 
condition of things that the young hunter thor- 
oughly enjoyed and had no wish to jeopardise by 
indiscreet action. As the days went on and young 
Joseph extended his observations, and profited 
thereby, he intertained his fellow passengers with 
a loquacity proas to that manner of life, that 
would have done credit to one with much more 
practical experience in the hunter's occupation 
than he. But somehow the tolerant and good 
natured captains usually discovered at the end of 
two or three days, the tact unfolded with suspicious 
care, that the affable "meat maker" notwithstand- 
ing the showy insignia of his calling and vaunting 
pretentions, usually hunted with his tongue. He 
accustomed himself. to fina ready e.xcu.ses at the 
non-appearance of fresh wild meat at the boat's 
table, that in such points that he hunted while the 
boats crew were wooding up, — the plausible story 
came to him that he saw the startling .siwn of a 
bitT war party — and surely no one wanted him to 
risk (;ven chances on lieing scalped for the sake 



1jLck..skia joe. 242 

of an elk or a deer. At another wood .stop a 
short ramble would convince him that "a hunting 
party of snaky Injuns had driven the point and 
scared the game out." At another dme he would 
come out of the timber with a detailed and breezy 
statement of how he wounded a big- fat buck, and 
yet another lime it would be a band of antelope, 
that "Look away a lead mine with them pumped 
from my telescopic Sharp gun, but got out of sight 
among the bluffs." The wounded ^^ame story came 
in handy when the gang planks were pulled in and 
no chance for a sympathizing passenger to help 
him out by volunteering to assist in trailing. The 
I oat could not loose unnecessary time. 

But, alas for our young friend's free rides, free 
grub and fr(^e whisky, his star as "meat maker" 
grew dim. while the tongue hunting star shone 
out with the radiant glare of a big full-faced har- 
vest moon, and it was a green captain, indeed, who 
employed Buckskin Joe as wild meat hunter on a 
Fort Benton trip. 

The next heard of Buckskin was around F"ort 
Buforel. He came into that post one day during 
a January storm and in a brisk, business-like air, 
walked up 10 :he commandant's quarters to make 
a requisition on that officer for the use of two six 
mule teams to haul up the carcasses of one dozen 
elk that he had butchered in a timber point below 
die shute at the mouth of the Lower or Little 
Muddy river. After Joseph was feasted and fed 
royally lor two or three days as the hero of a great 



243 Frontier vntd 1m)ian Lin.. 

hunter's coup, puttinor to shame the pretensions 
ot Yellowstone Kelly and even withering the 
green laurels that had so long encircled the brow 
of the prince ' of nimrods — Lonesome Charley 
Reynolds, the necessary teams, drivers and escorts 
were furnished by the quartermaster in obediance 
to the post commandant's orders to assist Buck- 
skin Joe in the transportation of several ions of 
wild meat to the fort. 

The party reached the scene of the great hunt 
in due time and after diligent search, but one elk 
could be found. A light snow saved the hunter 
from immediate and positive humiliation. After a 
few pantomimic bursts of dispair, Joe condemned 
a pack of imaginary wolves for depriving the gar- 
rison of some toothsome feasts. 

Having run his hunters' reputation to cover, 
Joseph tried a new vocation — that of whiskey tra- 
der. A plausible showing ot expectant profits in- 
duced a bar tender on one of the Montana bound 
steamers to land our hopeful hero and a five gal- 
lon keg of bad whiskey near the mouth of Porcu- 
pine creek, where a band of whisk^'y drinking As- 
sinaboines were encamped. It took but a few 
minutes to strike up a trade with these ihirsiy 
Indians. They brought bales of robes and furs 
to the point of rendezvous agreed upon and cheer- 
fully dumped them over the river bank where 
the tickled trader had a skiff in waiting to receive 
them. He joyfully passed up the whiskey as fast 
as^he could" measure the liquid out. But the firey 



Buckskin Joe, 244 

stuff went to the poor Indians' heads at once and 
they commenced a furious fusilade with their guns. 
The result was, that Joe took to the willows and 
woods and was glad to exchange fur, robes, skiff 
and even his gun for safety from a tragic death 
prospect among drunk crazed savages. 

He related a pitiful story to the bar tender 
of the disastrous outcome of his trading trip. 
Undaunted, he was again staked with a five gallon 
keg of "hre water" with all the name implied. 
This time he would try the Indians around Fort 
Berthold, where he hoped for better results for old 
acquaintance sake. He succeded in getting three 
ponies, which success in the sanguinity of his na- 
ture he imparted to a friend that "it will put me 
foot foreniost." 

He had, however, hardly made his trade and 
satisfied himself of its happy termination when a 
young Gros Ventre, who had once been Joe's 
partner on an unlucky hunt, came up while the 
new owner still h*>ld his acquisition firmly by the 
lariats, and cast admiring glances upon them. 

"My friend," said the young Gros Ventre, "you 
are now rich, while I am poor; you have three fine 
ponies while 1 have none. Take pity on me." 

Here was an old partner ii^ distress. Joe's heart 
swelled, and the lariat holding his best pony was 
then placed in the Gros Ventre's hands, and the 
happy recipient went off rejoicing. 

Then came along an old Aricaree. "My young 
friend," said the red brother smiling blandly, "you 



245 FkoxTiKk wn Indiax Lifk. 

have two handsome ponies — you are rich. 1 have 
a nice daughter. Give me your best pony and 
my daughter is your wife." Buckskin joe assent- 
ed and thus by custom of the Aricarees, he had 
become entwined in the Hymenial coil. 

He had had hardly taken possession of his 
bronzed bride, before he heard an Agency em- 
ployee cry out lustily : 

"Run for your life foe, the police are after you !" 

The discomfited bridegroom rushed toward the 
willow palch but being pressed ior time hid under 
an overturned bull boat. l)Ut he was discovered, 
dragged from his hidirg place, and sent down to 
Fort Stevenson in irons. A few days later the 
steamer Nellie Peck, Captain Grant Marsh in 
command, came down from the mountains and the 
prisoner was placed in the captain's charge with 
instructions to have him safely delivered to the 
civil authorities at Yankton for trial. 

It so happened that partner Mercer and my- 
self having lost some ponies and mules, and learn- 
ing they were on the bottoms opposite bort Rice, 
hailed die steamer Nellie Peck from the Painted 
Woods landing and took passage tor the neigh- 
borhood of ihat place. On 1 eing put ashore ihe 
captain requested one of us to take an e.Ktra gun 
ar.d the other a roll of blankets to be left on th(^ 
river bank "until called for." Meantime the en- 
gineer of the boat in "l)lowing oft " enveloj^ed the 
vessel in a steam cloutl as it sIowIn- receded from 



Buckskin Joe. 246 

the l)ank. C^ut trom the steam cloud on the shore 
after the steamer Q;lidecl on down stream — came 
forth Buckskin foe, buoyant in spirits and claimed 
the property that was to be "called for." These 
events happened in fune, 1871. 

The lessons of June, 1871, were heeded, and 
at the age of twenty-one years, Buckskin Joe be- 
came a changed young man. He was done with 
foolish pranks. He became a good hunter and 
trapper, and in the hostile neighborhood of Fort 
Peck, killed several Indian warriors in fair fights. 
He became the most proficient Indian sign talker 
among white men to found along the Upper Mis- 
souri river, il not in the entire West. He was a 
good trailer and plainsman, and his services were 
held in high estimation by the managers of the 
great Durfee & Peck company, who had tempor- 
ary trading houses established at convenient 
places throughout the northern buffalo range. To 
keep up communication between these isolated 
posts in a hostile Indian country required the ser- 
vices of experienced frontiersman. A record of 
the closing days of Joe's career come to us while 
he was emplo\e(-i in this kind of service. 

Fort Belknap on the upper branches of Milk 
river, near the P)ear Paw motmtains, was in the 
range of several Indian tribes who were contin- 
ually in a stale of open hostility with each other 
and making it dangerous at all times on the prair- 
ies outside ot the immediate protection of the 



247 Frontikk AM) 1m)ia.\ Lin-,. 

protection of the fortified bastions. In such a 
state of affairs on these ranges the Indian "sign 
talker" was a welcome and valuable addition to 
the help about a trading post. Buckskin Joe was 
everywhere recognized in that art as fully equal to 
the red men that he imitated. 

His education in this line had been received in 
a peculiar school. He had early made the sign 
language a special study, and while at Belknap he 
hit upon the novel idea of finishing up this study 
by marrying a deaf and dumb woman of the tribe 
of River Crows. Besides educating her husband 
she brought into the world a young son who was 
almost idolized by the white father. Joe's affec- 
tion for the his boy ''Billy" is one of the reveries 
of pleasant memories of the employees of Fort 
Belknap during the years 1873-4 5. 

Joe was given a dispatch to carry from Fort 
Belknap to F~"ort Benton, some time in December 
1877. The first night out he encamped in a 
sparsely timbered coulee with a surrounding of 
high and broken hills. A little Hurry of snow 
during the night, and the weather being cold and 
blustry, he~Jkept up a large blazing fire and had 
evidently passed a cheerless night. When morn- 
ing came he roused himselt and took a glance in 
the direction where his pony had been picketed 
but found that the animal had disappeared. Hast- 
ily walking to the place where he had driven the 
pin in the earth, he found it raised, the lariat 
gone, and all the appearance of a scare. Negk-ct- 



Buckskin Joe. 248 

ing- his gun he started off in the direction the an- 
imal had taken, and a clue from hoof imprints led 
him to watching- along until he sighted his pony 
quietly feeding at the edge of a ravine nearly one 
mile from his camping place. 

Without the usual suspicion that had saved him 
from traps heretofore, he walked briskly toward 
his pony, when at a sharp angle of the ravine he 
was startled by the loud report of a rifle followed 
quickly by two or three others, and then a ball 
went crashing into Joe's thigh bone, and he fell to 
the ground. The long black hair and red painted 
faces of half a dozen Indians now peered above 
a depression in the curve of a coulee, and one of 
them shouted out to the wounded dispatch carrier, 
as interpreted from the language of the Sioux : 

"Hog face white man your time has come!" 

loe saw himself helplessly in a trap and entirely 
at the mercy of his murderers. But his coolness 
and nerve did not desert him, even as he knew 
his impending doom in the glistening, snaky eyes 
of his adversaries. Ke partly raised himself by his 
hands and thus addressed the Indians in Sioux as 
they approached him : 

"Why do you kill me ? ^'ou are Medicine Bear's 
Yanktoneys. I have harmed none of you." 

"White men have too many tongues," replied 
the savage spokesman, and fired another volley 
from iheir rilles, when Buckskin Joe fell backward 
to join the unending list of the great plains' 
oraveless dead. 



249 Frontier ant) Indian Life. 

A tear to foe's memory say you. A tear for 
poor boy "Billy " say we. 

In the year 1884, R. H. Allen, who took charge 
of the Agency of the Blackfeet, Gros V^entres and 
River Crows, on April ist, of that year reported 
the condition of the Indians at Fort Belknap and 
the reservation as follows : 

"When I entered upon the duties oi' ag(MU I 
found the Indians in a deplorable condition. Their 
supplies had been limited, and many of them 
were gradually dying of starvation. I visited a 
large number of tents and cabins the second day 
after they had received their weekly rations, look- 
ed through them carefully and found no provisions, 
except in two instances. All bore marks of suf- 
fering from lack of food, but the little children 
seemed to have suffered most; they were so ema- 
ciated that it did not seem possible for them to 
live lono- and many of them have since passed 
away." 





Chief Gall, 



J.KADKH OF THK iNoRTUKKX SlOlX AT TIIK 

Katti,E(»x the Ljttle Hi(i Horn. 



McCALL THE MINER. 

ON the east bank of the Missouri, just across 
from the mouth of lower or Big Knife river, 
a ridge of high bkiffs come up abruptly to the 
waters edge. 

Fhe general view from these lofty over-topping 
ridges, along the far winding valley of this mighty 
waterway, is one of the most artistic grouping of 
nature's suburb handiwork, that can anywhere be 
seen in that section of the country. 

The valley of the Big Knife river, with its short 
serpentine windings and its inner bends thickly 
studded with groves of ash, elm and box elder, is, 
to the eye ot the lover of the beautiful in nature, 
always pleasant to look upon. On the south bank 
of this clear water stream, — near where its waters 
mingle with the muddy swirls of the swift and 
wide Missouri — now stands the skeleton town of 
Stanton, and on die same sight where eighty years 
ago, the last village of the extinct tribe of Anah- 
aways or Black Shoes had run their life race to a 
finish. 

Further up the Knife river on both banks, near 
the hioh or second bench land can be seen the 
round eardi circles, with h(;re and there a raised 
mound, that mark the spot where the historic Gros 
Ventre town of Meiaharta stood through centur- 
ies of wild Indian life; where the cruel head chief 



2^1 Frontier and Indian Life 

Horned Weasel set sulkino- in his tent when visit- 
ed by Captain. Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark ex- 
pedition of 1804, and as noted down in their jour- 
nal at the time, this morose chieftain availed him- 
self of the "civilized indecorum of refusing to le 
seen." It was here too, in the closing- days of 
Metaharta's history, it give up the llower of its 
youth in disastrous war and the towns stength faded 
away by recurring visits of small pox and cholera. 

Twelve miles below on the same side of the 
Missouri, yet in plain view from these high bluffs 
on the east bank can be seen the plain where once 
stood the famous frontier trading post of early day 
history — old Fort Clark, and near by the low lying 
mounds that marked the spot where, also, the 
principal part of the Mandan nation laid down 
their lives to a deaih-dealing pestilence. 

A few miles further down along the banks of 

the big river, passing juts of broken hills and bad 

lands until Lake Mandan — 

"In all her length far winding- lay, 
With promitory creek and bay, 
And islands that empurpled bright. 
Floated amid the livelier liglit, 
And mountains that like giants stand, 
To gentinal enchanted land." 

Underneath these bluffs of the east and nordi 

side of the Missouri, described in the first part of 

this sketch, lignite coal indications were noticed 

by early travelers, and efforts had been made by 

the steamboat companies toward their opening antl 

development; but little came of it, except for a 

fresh subject in a dull conversation. 



McCall THE Miner. 252 

Memory recalls a little grass plot, lying between 
these rugged precipitous bluffs, and the steep, 
high bank at the river's brink. It recalls a neat 
little cabin built of small cottonwood locrs in the 
centre of the oases. It recalls a little iron grey 
pony picketed on choice spots where the nutritious 
buffalo grass kept him in a pleasant mood. Poor 
faithful old "Jim" pony, we revere you for your 
good master's sake. But memory is not done 
yet. Events and sight come again. We see up 
against the side of a high bluff a large round 
opening, with the deadening sound of a miner's 
pick coming out of the interior. VVe see the fig- 
ure of an old grey headed grey bearded man with 
pick in hand toiling faithfully among a pile of coal. 
Is he alone ? Does he talk to the shelved walls 
around him that gave back answers in his own 
voice ? "My fortune ! my fortune ! Here is my 
fi-rtune. Out of your shelves, oh, deadened 
sound and repeat once more if never again : "My 
fortune ! my fortune ! Here is my fortune." 

During ihe years 1872—3, one of the most wel- 
come visiors to my Painted Woods old stockade 
home, was McCall the Miner. The veteran 
mineralogist was at tiial time about sixty years of 
age, though his physical carriage was erect and 
his step as firm as one twenty years younger. 

He had left his home, which, if we remember 
aright was in the .Stale of Illinois, and joined a 
I'old hunter's caxalcade to the mines of California 



253 Frontier and Indian Lif-e. 

in 1849. For twenty years thereafter he roamed 
in prospectino- tours through the mountain ranges 
ot the Pacific coast. 

He had followed every mining "stampede" of 
any consequence that had — during- a space of 
twenty years — occurred within the gold belt. Had 
experienced a disappointment at Pike's Peak; 
felt the burning sands of the Nevada desert; went 
hungry at Salmon river; suffered hardships at 
Frazer river; and suffered everything but death in 
that wild midwinter rush to the bleak, desolate 
plains of upper Sun river, where so many of his 
prospecting companions by open plain and moun- 
tain gulch, lay down in their snowy mantels and 
were put to their last long sleep by the whistling- 
requiems of stern, hard-faced Boreas. 

In all my personal experience among men, I 
have no recollection of knowing of one who had 
seen so much disappointment, yet carry the bright 
beacon of hope ever in front of him — ever casting 
reflective rays in advance, — to lighten the gloom, 
to bid him push on — as McCall the Miner, 

Every visit to the Painted Woods by the old 
man, left the impression of unquenchable hope. 
Dispair, so somebre-hued to otliers, was to him 
unknown. His last visit marked the same prolile 
and his voice sounded in the same phonographic 
repeatlno- sound that I first heard at the ¥Am point 
coal mine, when in that dark cavern, with my ])res 
ence unknown to him — repeating to himself: "My 
fortune ! mv fortune! Here is mv fortune. " 



McCali, the Miner. 254 

McCall's coal mine project like so many of his 
previous ventures, ended in failure. Outside 
markets for his product there were none, and the 
few inhabitants that then resided on the Missouri 
slope, found the outcroppinos of good coal in 
abundance at their own doors. 

It was, therefore, with considerable satisfaction 
that the veteran prospector received the appoint- 
ment of special mineralogical expert from General 
Custer on behalf of the Government for the 
Black Hills expedition of the summer of 1874, 
which that dashing officer commanded in person. 

It is from statements of some of the nif^n who 
accompanied the military opening of that treasure 
trove, that give us a glimpse of McCall during 
that trip. He had long been an earnest advocate 
of its occupation and utalization by the white race. 
Now that his hopes were at last realized, his spirits 
took a cheerful turn. 

Up on the side of a sloping hill in a deep cut 
ravine that faces the Belle F'ourche river, stands 
McCall. It is a warm June day and Custer and 
his soldiers have unsaddled their horses, and while 
some have sought die breezy pine tree shades for 
an after dinner nap, others are admiring the showy 
clusters of wild ilowers that were in wide bloom 
down the valley. Near McCall stand two other 
miners, and each like himself, with pick in hand. 

McCall strikes his pick into the earth — good 
ir other earUi she is now and gives up her rich 



255 Frontier and Indian Life 

treasure with unsparing- hand. "W hy. here is 
gold in the grass roots !" exclaimed the old miner. 
Custer was sent for, and a dispatch as embodied 
in McCall's words, was written out and handed to 
Charley Reynolds, who, within two days there- 
after, placed it on the wires at Fort Laramie and 
thence by lightening's speed sent to the uttermost 
parts of the civilized earth. 

Meantime the news of the gold tind spread 
through the camp of Custer's men, and an ex- 
citing and happy feeling seemed to prevail among 
them all — no, not all. McCall stood by in musing, 
pensive silence, though here his live dream 
brought forth a realistic and joyful awakening. 
Those standing near him hear in soft whispers 
coming from his lips his fateful dream words: 
"My fortune ! my fortune. Here is my iortune." 

After the return of the Black Hills expedition 
to Fort Lincoln, McCall the Miner, now released 
from his oblioation to the Government, set about 
organizing a private expedition to the Flills, 
though well knowing it was uncedeci Sioux land, 
being the most valuable part of their reserxation. 

A party of about twenty men enlisted with 
McCall in this gold-hunting enterprise, and under 
his guidance made their way to the foot hills on 
Rapid creek, sometime in October. They were 
soon joined by other parties tiniil the lilack Hills 
coimtry became literally over-run with prospect- 
ino- miners and adventurers. 



McC All. rifi; M iNKR. 256 

Vp to this time the Sioux had not disttirbed any 
of the intriidino- whites. But this could not be 
expected to coniinue. Protests against the un- 
lawful occupation by Indian representatives, and 
a feeble attempt had been made to accede to their 
wishes by Government agents, but were futile. 
Popular clamer among westerners who were inter- 
ested one way or another in the opening, created 
a strong feeling, and th? old cry that "the Indians 
must go" as they had went so many times before. 
The military authorities made some attempt to 
stay the tide, but were powerless to enforce any 
edict however just, against trespassers who were 
backed by public sympathy and clamor. 

Emigrants commenced gathering at the various 

outfitting points leading to the new Eldorado. 

Impromptu songs of an inspiring nature were 

sung on the march or at the evening camp fires, 

with a general chorus like the following : — 

'•Hurrah, hurrah, we're marching west to-day, 
Move on, move on and give the right of way; 
So we'll sing the chorus for we're going out to staj. 
In the golden Black Hills." 

"Where is McCall ?" Such was the question 
often asked by the campers in the Black Hills, 
during the winter of 1874-5. No one had seen 
him since November, when he had left his party 
in a "cranky" spell, and had saddled up Jim pony 
and leading another one as pack animal, hied him- 
self over the hills and away in high dudgeon at 
some fancied grievance, and was seen no more by 
his friends and acquaintances. 



257 Frontier and Indian Lifk. 

To the Indian, then, we turn again, as we have 
many times previous, for the last chapter in a fron- 
tiersmans life. 

One March day, 1876, I found myself at Mal- 
norie's place, at Fort Berthold. Lonesome Char- 
ley Reynolds was stopping there, having come up 
from the new agency in the interest of the Gov- 
ernment, watching the movements of the hostile 
Sioux on the Yellowstone, through their runners 
to the camps of the Fort Berthold bands. Two 
Uncpapas among the Gros Ventres, were kept in 
line'of observation. Reynolds noticed them take 
their seat in the snow by the river bank and keep 
their eyes on the west side of the Missouri. 

"Let us watch the watchers," said Reynolds to 
the writer as we were basking in the bright, but 
heatless rays of this March day sun. After about 
an hour, the Indians exhibited signs of interest. 
A line of black objects were seen hieing down into 
the timber from the Beaver creek ridges. They 
there encamped. They proved to be a small band 
of Uncpapa Sioux. Among their stock, jaded and 
tired, some Aricaree visitors to that camp rcc(jg- 
nized poor old Jim, Miner McCalTs faithful pony. 
It was from an Aricaree interpreter, we gathered 
the following, though the stictures are the writers : 
A chilly, windy, April day on a small creek north- 
west of the Black Hills, a band of six Indians are 
jogging along on their tired ponies. They were of 
Black Moon's camp of Uncpapas, who were en- 



McCall the Miner. 258 

camped on Powder river. These six were picked 
men, sent out by their chiefs on a reconnoisance 
to observe the movements of the white trespassers 
among the Black Hills. 

While taking close observations along the creek 
the Indians observed a white man mounted upon a 
pony and leading another bearing a pack. The 
movements of the man were leasurely; the ponies 
nipping at bunches of grass as they walked along. 
This convinced the Indians that the white man was 
not making any point in particular, so watched 
his movements without fear. 

McCall, finally, saw the Indians, but their bear- 
ing was such that he thought he had not been seen, 
and quickly retrograded, to a clump of bushes, 
and entered them with his animals to escape ob- 
servadon. He had hardly time to congratulate 
himself on his timely warning and fortunate es- 
cape, when his startled ears heard the ominous 
words: "How." 

The white man, old feeble looking, repeated in 
a faint, tremulous voice, "How, " meantime peer- 
ing out through the branches at six stalwart sav- 
ages, hideously painted in red and yellow, sitting 
in their saddles, wnih a languid, nonchalant man- 
ner, but with gun covers drawn. 

"Come here !" shouted one of the Indians in 
good English, 

Now old man, where are your wits ? Do you 
not notice the peculiar paint on their faces ? Do 
you not see those naked gun barrels ? True, 



259 Frontier and Indian Lifk. 

the^re had been no white man killed by Indians 
around the Black Hills country yet. You have a 
good true gun in your hand, and a splendid six 
shooter in your belt — all loaded. You have the 
shelter of the brush, and there are but six of them. 
Strike for your life — old man — strike. 

"Come here." 

Once more musty old proverb, — once more: 

"He who hesitates is lost." 

Weak, confused, unguarded man. You have 
left your covert to shake the proffered hands 
of hostile men. 

Many weeks after the events herein recorded, 
a party of prospecdng miners, wandering among 
the orulches and creeks northwest of the Black Hills 
came upon the partly, decomposed corpse of a 
white headed, white bearded old man. The body 
had been badly muiilated, and the contents of a 
large sack of gold dust had evidently been taken 
from the dead man's effects, cut open, and scat- 
tered in deep gashes, cut in the corpse. Here, 
then was fortune's ending as far as McCall the 
Miner was concerned. While a shallow grave 
was being prepared for the mutilated remains, 
the bendinfy, sawing, wind swept trees above 
them, seemed endlessly repeating in soft requiem: 
"My fortune ! My fortune. Here is my fortune." 







Charles IVIalnorik. Sk. 

Last of tlic Indian Traders at (dd Kort 
Mcrtlidld. 



FORT TOTTEN TRAIL 

THE old military post of Fort Totten, located 
on the southeast shore nf Devil's Lake, was 
established in 1867, and became the second post 
in the Northwestern chain between Fort Aber- 
crombia on the Red River of North and Fort Bu- 
ford at the mouth of the Yellowstone River. The 
construction was commenced under Lieut. Col. G. 
A. Williams, of the 20th U. S. Infantry. 

The Devil's Lake, or as originally called by the 
Sioux, Mde Wakonda or sometimes Minnewakon, 
is the largest body of water in North Dakota, and 
aronnd its timbered shores for many years prior to 
the military occupation, had been the chosen homes 
of the Sisseton branch of the Santee Sioux. 

At the time of the military occupation of the 
Devil's Lake country in 1867, many of the Sisse- 
tons were unfriendly to the establishment of the 
post there, but further than waylaying a soldier 
or mail carrier occasionally, or stampeding the beef 
herd no particular harm came from their hostility. 

Fort Stevenson the third post or link in the 
chain was one hundred and twenty miles away — a 
little south of west — on the Missouri river. To 
keep up communication between these two forts, 
a semi monthly mail line was established that re- 
mained in service f(jr a number of years, and with, 
the yearly pilgrimages of the hay contractors out 



26r Fro.ntier anh L^l)lA^• Liik. 

fit from St. Paul, and now and then a military re- 
connoisance, a pretty well defined road was being- 
made that in time became known as the "Fort 
Totten Trail." 

The country through which the trail is located is 
a high and treeless plain. Within forty miles of 
the breaks of the Missouri the trail crosses over the 
Dog Den range, a spur of the Coteau du Prairie, 
the great divide or grass covered mountains that 
cross the two Dakotas beginning at Bijou Hills in 
South Dakoka, extending northwestward until lost 
in the surface depressions of the lower Saskatche- 
wan valley. The Dog Den had long been a sa- 
cred q-round and place of mystery to the Indian 
tribes who lived within the northern buffalo range. 
It was here — in the long ago — many of the lucky 
Gros Ventres sat and shared with their prophetic 
chief, the wisdom of heedino a dreamers warnino-. 
A sea of waters freighted with mighty ice floes 
swept down from the cold north and submerged 
the occupants of the great Gros Ventre village 
that nestled in the big bend of Mouse river. 

Over among the deep ravines and canons on 
the north side where the mysterious ghost dogs 
snarled and growled at the cavern's mouth that 
led deep down through earthy crust to that under- 
ground land with evergreen pastures, but whose 
crowded condition led the beasts to seek outlet to 
the wide land above when the drowsy watch dogs 
snored in restless sleep, and thus the Great Spirit 
sent forth the fattened herds from the grassy sides 



Fort Toi tkn Trail, 262 

of the IJog Den range that the Aricarees and 
other faithful devotees might Hve in plenty and 
be glad. 

Around these elevated plains of the Dog Den 
country the buftalo continued in large numbers 
until about the year 1868, when they disappeared, 
and only now and then after that year that a herd 
could be seen th?re. In 1874, a band of sixty buf- 
falo v/ere discovered near Prophet's Mountain, a 
butte ten miles south of the Dog Den, and a few 
miles west of that place, by a hunting party of 
Sissetons. The buffalo were surrounded and slain 
by the red hunters. The destruction of this band 
ended the buffalo among the lakes and buttes of 
the Coteau du Praire, with a very few straggling 
exceptions. 

Alter the flight of the Indians following the mas- 
sacre of Minnesota settlers in 1862, the noted red 
outlaw Inkpaduta and his faithful band made their 
hiding camps among the spreading oaks of the 
deep and secluded ravines, and when a squadron 
of cavalry was sent from General Sibley's com- 
mand in August 1864, to search after this red 
Roderick Dhu, the mysterious caves hid him from 
the sight of Sibley's soldiers who returned to the 
command in camp on the Missouri, saying the wiley 
savage and his brood had fled without trail — flew 
in air or swallowed up by signless earth clifts. 

A very few years after, the Fort Totten trail be- 
came a thoroughfare, the country bordering the 
Doa Den range became known in a gruesome 



263 Frontier and Lxdian Likk. 

way as "the land of strange disappearances." 
While Time in its own mysterious way eventually 
uncovers the hidden skeleton for all to view, and 
points its bony finger to the blood-smeared sleep- 
haunted assassin; yet several unaccountable disap- 
pearances of thirty-five, twenty or even twelve 
years ago, are as yet a strong box to the curious. 

The military mail on the Fort Totten trail at the 
first start-out had been carried by soldiers, but 
many were killed at some point on the road; and 
what was of equal importance to the military, the 
mail sacks were burned or otherwise destroyed. 

It finally became so risky that some of the best 
versed frontiersmen were employed to carry the 
mails throuofh the hostile Indian lines, which for 
safety sake was accomplished by traveling at night 
and lying in some secure place during the day. 
In winter during the stormy periods the mail car- 
rier would then change his two saddle ponies for a 
team of dogs in tandem, hitched to a carryall. 
With such a rig the snow filled coulees could be 
crossed without much difficulty, and besides a 
stormy head wind could be faced with more com- 
fort and greater speed with dogs than by ponies. 

Probably no mail carrier on that hazardous trail 
ever acquitted himself in his duties so satisfactorily 
to the post officers at either Fort Totten or Fort 
Stevenson, as a small wiry young Highlander 
called by his follows, "Scotty Richmond. On one 
occasion he was caught out in a fierce, sweeping 
blizzard in December 1867, while attempting a trip 



Fort Totten Trail. 264 

from Fort Totten west and reached a ravine in 
the neighborhood of Big Hollow where he was 
compelled to kill his faithful horse, rip his bowels 
open and crawl in their place, where he remained 
the greater part of three days, or until the furious 
storm had passed by, when after hiding^ the mail 
sack he returned to the post for a fresh mount and 
a new start. 

The February following, he was again caught 
out on the trail in a bad storm. This time the 
wild and tempestuous winds kept up incessantly 
for nine days. He had started out from Fort 
Totten with a team of three dogs in tandem con. 
veying himself and mail on a light constructed 
carryall. His traveling rations giving entirely 
out on account of the enforced delay, he was 
compelled to kill and eat two of his dogs, and it 
was two weeks after starting, that the indomit- 
able Scotsman was seen by the post sentry at 
Fort Stevenson coming in from the overland trail, 
leading a solitary dog attached to a carryall. 

With all their hardships and dangers these mail 
carriers were poorly compensated, and what litde 
they received were easily euchred out of, by the 
post trader or other hangers on around these mili- 
tary posts, for the hardy carrier half expected 
each trip to be his last, and consequently did not 
propose to leave any thrifty looking bundles be- 
hind for other people to fight over, if by chance 
these aforesaid people awoke some fine morning to 
to discuss th(^ non appearance of the letter sack's 



265 F'rONTIKR and ImHAN LiI'K. 

traveling- guardian in an indifferent way with tlie 
plilosophical conchision tenderly expressed, that it 
was a case of another mail carrier "out of luck." 

But dangerous as the country was in those days, 
fool -hardy wanderers were continually roaming 
over the plains, seeking for the most part some 
imaginary place ahead where "there were good 
times reported." Sometimes these men were 
alone and unarmed, depending in such cases when 
hostiles were met, on the Indian's well known an- 
tipathy to shedding the blood of an unfortunate 
lunatic. At other times parties of two or three, 
leading an old sore-backed pack pony, or enjoying 
the noteless strains of music produced by the 
wooden-wheeled Red river cart in moiion as they 
plodded patiently along the dreary trail, following 
the hopeful packer in his eager search for the land 
of "better times" — a will-o-the-wist that usually 
kep^ conveniently, a little way beyond. 

It was in the early summer of 1868, that one of 
these odd looking wanderers above described 
came driving into Fort Buford from bV)rt I'eck^ 
with a sorry looking old cay use attached lo a de- 
lapidated, springless wagon as "outfit." He was 
of German nationality, though he had considera- 
ble knowledge of English speech. His appear- 
ance indicated a man about sixty years of age He 
gave himself no name; told no one of his destina- 
tion nor from whence. Poverty was his i)lf"a, when, 
as was customery with the military posts at that 
period, he expected a little help from the post 



Fort Totten Trail. 266 

commander to reach the next military fort, which in 
the hne the old man was following would be Fort 
Stevenson nearly two hundred miles down along 
the Missouri river. 

He turned up at the latter post in due time, and 
as at Fort Buford, played successfully the role 
of the mendicant, and drew upon the commis- 
sary for another supply of provisons to enable him 
to pass over the trail to Fort Totten. His slow 
moving rig winding around near the base of the 
group of red buttes, a few miles below the fort 
and there the curtain dropped that screened the old 
man in preparation for his last stage act in life's 
versatile drama, from the searching eyes of the 
Fort Stevenson soldiers. 

At this time the post mails between the four 
forts on this Northwestern line had been let out 
by contract and Charles Ruffee, a well known 
Minnesota contractor had charge of the line. The 
Ruffee mail carriers were of the best possible ma- 
terial for this kind of business. Among the mail 
carriers awaiting their turn when the old German 
arrived at Fort Stevenson was a light complex- 
ioned Scotch Indian named MacDonald. Though 
somewhat unsocial, he was a fearless carrier and 
would never flinch (rom an assigned task in riding 
the danoer line. He left the fort on the arrival of 
ihe upper mail, f(;r Fort Totten, the day after the 
old (jerman's departure, and with no apparent 
change in his rotine at departure for the trip. 

When MacDonald's mail lime was overdue at 



26/ Frontier and Indian Life. 

Fort Totten, his non-appearance was commented 
upon, but it was not until three or tour days 
had passed that the officer in command deemed it 
necessary to send out a mounted detatchmcnt to 
learn some ddings of the missing carrier and his 
mail. As the mounted reconnoiterers passed west 
ward along the trail, the whole country seemed a 
vast wilderness in repose. The very birds of the 
air appeared to have abandoned the land. From 
a spur of the Dog Den range they looked down 
on either hand upon lonely valleys. Even the 
antelope and buffalo left no recent trace and for 
auo-ht these soldiers knew, had retreated again to 
their underground abode. Again the party pro- 
ceed carefully westward. Upper Strawberry Lake 
is reached. Its green waters in strange contrast 
with the blackened plain — for though but summer 
days, a dense blue smoke that hung low in air told 
the story of the fires' destructive work among the 
the cured grasses of the plains. The sun .?.s it 
hung low in the western sky — the intervening blue 
smoke made the day giver seem a big fire ball to 
the optics. Saffron colored shadows, lengthening 
with the sitting sun. and awful stillness about, had 
permeated the spirits of both horses and men as 
they o-rouped along the dim trail in silence. A 
neck of land to the left of the trail was reached 
that divided the two lakes. Here a small wagon 
was discovered but nothing moving about it. A 
patch of grass that had escaped the general con- 
flao-radon encircled the abandoned vehicle. At 



Fort Tutten Trail. 268 

the burned line the soldiers were horrified to see 
the dead body ot an old man laying face down, 
scalped, and his hands and feet dismembered. The 
wagon bed had been hacked and splintered as if 
in wanton sport. The fire had burned every trace 
of sign. As darkness set in the party went into 
camp at the shore of the lake. At daylight on re- 
suming investigation, about one mile east of the 
lake, near where the trail passed down into 
Horseshoe valley, where a partly burned mail sack 
was discovered with some crisp bits of paper lay 
ing scattered about, and a few yards further on, 
a buckskin coat also partly burned, and two or 
three holes through it, apparantly made by bullet, 
and blotches of unmistakable blood stains, 
The coat was readily recognized by the soldiers 
as the property of MacDonald. A thoroug^h 
search was then made for the mail carrier's body, 
or for other links connecting the mystery, but no 
further discovery rewarded the searchers, yet the 
conclusions were, that a band of hostile Indians 
had raided the trail making MacDonald and the 
old German victims. 

Another tragedy on the Trail later in the sea- 
son seemed to confirm this theory. A party of 
eight men — five soldiers and two noted mail car-. 
ners, — Bill Smith the slayer of two Mexicans at 
old Fort Union the year before, and Frank Palm- 
er afterwards State Senator. The affair happened 
between the Dog Dens and Fort Totten at a place 
called the Big Hollow. The party had made a 



269 [''rontier and Imhan Life. 

noon camp; the sergeant and four soldiers 
were huddled together examining a watch, when 
six Indians secreted near by opened hre and killed 
all four. Bill Smith was laying under the 
shade of the wagon, was shot at, but managed to 
mount his horse bare back and escaped on the 
prairies. Snyder the teamster was watering his 
mules at a spring, with Palmer near by leadiig 
his unsaddled pony, when upon hearing the firing 
above him, looked around in time to see two In- 
dians making a sneak on Snyder, and shot one of 
them in the arm which enabled both Parmer and 
the teamster to escape by mounting their horses 
bareback and lighting out, the Indians being afoot. 

It was asserted at the time by some, that these 
soldiers were killed by Sissetons in revenge for the 
murder of an old man of that tribe by some mail- 
carriers and soldiers at the Dog Den. This old 
Indian in order to avert trouble for his tribe had 
betrayed the plans of some turbulent spirits to 
General DeTrobriand the commander at Port Ste- 
venson. For this he was expelled from a camp of 
Sissetons at the head of Snake creek, and in re- 
turning alone on the trail toward the main village 
at Devils Lake, and was met. and his life taken by 
those whom he had risked so much to befriend. 

In recording these incidents the situation can be 
more clearly presented in the MacDc^nald case. 
Not finding the mail carriers body, and a further 
knowledge from some Montana miners about who 
the old German was, started up an investigation. 
This man had $40,000 in du?t when he disapp?ared 



l'i)\il' ToTTEN TkAIL. 27O 

from the mines and had chosen this eccentric 
method of eluding the organized gang of road 
ao-ents. as the robbers were then called that in- 
fested the mining region. The failure to find 
MacDonald's body was made conclusive to some 
people that he had by some means suspected that 
the old man had wealth and had murdered him for 
it, and made a ruse to show the bloody deed the 
work of Indians. A squad of soldiers on their way 
to Fort Snelling with some prisoners two or three 
years later claimed they had recognized the lost 
mail carrier among a crowd at the St. Paul depot 
and on being called by name disappeared in the 
crowd. And further, in all the trading posts con- 
tiguous to the Fort Totten trail, no gold in any 
large quantity was offered in barter by hostile reds. 
In the summer of 1868, when mail carrying be- 
tween the two forts became decidedly interesting, 
John George Brown, whom we have already re- 
ferred to in the sketch of the War Woman, un- 
dertook to carry the mail through alone by night 
rides. At his day hiding place near Strawberry 
Lake, he was surprised by Setting Bull and his 
band of Uncpapas, who were returning leasurely 
from a visit to the Sissetons! Brown was dis- 
armed, his horses were confiscated, and then his 
clothes stripped from him, and with hard hitting 
welts from coo sticks applied over his naked shoul- 
ders was told in vigorous Sioux to "ke-ke-dah," 
so wended his way back to Fort Stevenson in this 
plight much to his chagrin, for next to his pride of 



2/1 Frontier and Indian Lifb. 

notoriety as a frontiersman, Brown had a high 
opinion of his diplomacy that would "soothe the 
savage breast." But who can say had it been 
some one other than Brown, he might have shared 
the fate of MacDonald, or the old German or the 
soldier escort at Big Hollow. 

In March 1869, Sergeant Major Volger, Ser- 
geant Bitman, and a private soldier called Shang, 
received their military discharges from the 22nd 
Infantry at Fort Stevenson, and prepared to cross 
overland to St. Paul, thence eastward by rail to 
their eastern homes. They hired John George 
Brown to guide them to Fort Totten. They 
bid iidieu to their army comrades and started out 
hopefully under the soothing effects of a mild chin- 
nook breeze. After leaving the Dog Den, Brown 
became snow blind, and a storm coming on about 
the same time the party became separated and all 
perished but the guide. Sergeant Major Volger's 
body was iound after the snow melted, many miles 
beyond Fort Totten. 

In the autumn of 1873, James Wicker a well 
known old timer of Fort Berthold accompanied 
two men named Bagaman and Dickerman, over 
the Trail from Fort Stevenson to Mouse river via 
the Dog Den on a trapping expedition. Late in 
December, Dickerman returned to Fort .Stevenson 
alone, and said his partners had preceeded him 
three weeks before and were bringing in some cat- 
tle found running wild, and feigned surprise at 
their non-appearance. After circumstances point- 



FOKT TOTTEN TraI),. 2/2 

ed to foul play, and it is probable, that Wicker and 
Bagaman were made food for Mouse river pick- 
erel or buzzards and coyotes. 

The first ranch established near the Dog Den, 
was also the scene of a tragedy. A man named 
M()()re in company with a woman claiming to be 
his wife constructed a ranch in a deep ravine lined 
with spreading oaks and directly north of the 
main butte. The pair were joined in 1886 by a 
young stock owner named Chamberlin. Early in 
the spring his body was found many miles from 
the ranch, with signs of having just eaten a lunch 
before death and with features dreadfully contorted. 
It had been reported at the ranch that the young 
man had started out to roimd up the stock and had 
perished in a storm. The circumstances of the case 
induced Sheriff Satterlund, of McLean County to 
effect Moore's arrest and bring the prisoner to 
Washburn, the county s(^at to stand trial for murder, 
but was allowed to leave the country and after- 
wards was killed in Montana. Postmaster Miller of 
Turtle Lake, though twenty-five miles from the 
ranch at Dog Den, was at the lime the nearest 
mail station and office, received a letter from a 
prominent business man in a Minnesota town, 
asking information, by tenderly inquiring for the 
supposed wife of Moore as "one, once very dear 
to me." 

Another recorded tragedy along the Totten Trail 
was enacted in the autunm of 1884. Flopping 
P>11], a fronli'T'^m^in of ninnx' virlssitudr.=; — r\ mem- 



273 Frontier and Indian Life. 

ber of t'hc "medicine lodge" at Tough Timber in 
1869, described in the sketch of the War Woman; 
had been shot ahnost to death by Indians; lost his 
red wife by a breach of confidence, and set afoot 
several times at his wood yard by horse thieves. 
With a command of fifteen reckless cowboys rep- 
resenting a cattle syndicate along the British line, 
Bill moved down the Missouri, and under unwar- 
ranted authority from this syndicate, hung or shot 
thirty men — many, or most of the victims leading 
blameless lives. From the Wintering river these 
licensed desperadoes returned with three men 
tightly bound as prisoners and encamped for the 
night at the Dog Den. One of the prisoners — a 
forlorn, friendless hall Indian, had been carrying 
the Washburn and Villard mail for months through 
storms of winter or rains of summer with good 
word from all. After a melancholy night at the 
ranch, the captives tied together with ropes were 
led to a secluded spot of the third lake in the 
Strawberry chain, when they were shot down in 
cold blood and their bodies thrown in the water. 
Some years later two grinning skeletons tied 
with ropes were discovered by Colonel Low and a 
party ;of hunters, at that place and brought into the 
town of Washburn on the Missouri, but never a 
grave was dug or a tear of pity shed over the 
blanched bones of these murdered men. Such is 
life — and such is death — as shadowy forms follow 
on and on in successive lines to that far away time 
when loud trumpet calls will proclaim the dawn 
of resurrection and the new life. 










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POSY. . 

IN the early morning- of a May day. 187 1, there 
came a skiff with a lone occupant pointing 
shoreward at the old Fort Berthold landing. A 
tie up amid a group of water carrier maids and 
early bathers— and with oars in one hand and his 
portable property in the other, this lone navigator 
made his way up the blufi to Malnorie's place. A 
warm - breakfast, a good smoke and a little rest, 
and the stranger sought the first opening for em- 
ployment The object sought came to him in the 
offer of an assistant in a local contractor's log- 
ging camp situated about twenty-five miles up the 
river, nearly opposite the mouth of Little Mis- 
souri and near where the principal school build- 
in;;- has since been located. An old vvoodyard 
sh?xk was headquarters for the logging crew, with 
a large tent as -uplementary lodging place. 

No introduction was needed by his companions, 
beyond the fact that he came down from Fort Bu- 
ford, and he had been duly christianed by the 
loiterers at that posl after an Indiana county — Posy 
which, as bsing in their expressed opinion, the 
abiding place of the tenderfoot who stood passive 
to evolutionary links and refused to move with 
the light. He had little to say to his companions 
in working hours, but over his pipe or a cup of 
coffee he sometimes had hilarious moods, though 



274 Frontier AND Indian Life. 

he clothed his expressions of thought with some 
epigramic sentences, which caused his messmates 
to render judgment against him and he was forth- 
with condemned as a "queer fellow." 

To those of his comrades whose demeanor to- 
ward himself marked a more brotherly spirit, he 
reciprocated by self betrayal of his heart's secrets, 
which in so doing, with a limited allowance of cau- 
tion, he felt made it easier to bear. In Hoosier 
land he had loved and lost a maid in her teens, 
and he thought new lands and new faces would 
give him fresh courage and a change of scene 
assuage the gratings of a lacerated heart. 

On the evening of the 13th of June, when the 
supper was over and fragrant kinnekinic was send- 
ing up incense in small twirling clouds, the usual 
"Indian subject" was brought up for discussion. 
Several Aricaree and Gros Ventre war parties 
were out hunting after straoroHnor Sioux, and the 
consensus of opinion among the loggers, was, 
that the Sioux would be apt to retaliate — and if 
they did, as "Ree white men" they might expect a 
call. Meantime, as the conversation continued, 
daylight merged into the moonlight and matches • 
were applied to tapers within the tent. 

"Do you want to draw Indian fire. Put out 
those lights!" exclaimed Posy in an unusual voice 
of authorit)'. The remark was only greeted with a 
laugh. He then explained how accurate the aim 
and how deadly the shots that a tent full of peo- 
ple would be subject to, did a war partv conclude 



P0SY« 275 

to make a night raid. But the warning only cre- 
ated more mirth and ridicule at the Hoosier's ex- 
pense. Posy, nettled, then gathered up his blank- 
ets, — saying as he did so, — ^"I would much rather 
snooze in the willows than be shot to death sleep- 
ing in the tent." 

He had hardly gone two minutes, when the in- 
mates of the shack and tent were startled by the 
reports of three distinct rifle shots, almost simul- 
taneously fired at short range. After the shots 
came a wild yell from Posy — followed by calls for 
help, and groans, bivestigation proved that he 
had been shot from umbush and that his wounds 
were mortal. Upon the alter of Posy's sacri- 
fice the entire party of loggers — perhaps — owe 
their lives. Whether chance or fate — the result 
brought forth a puzzle, as unsolvable to our limit- 
ed understanding as the enigma of the mystery of 
life itselt. 

The morning light following, marked the de- 
parture of a war party of Sissetons from the 
timber, who as the avowed avengers of the 
murder of Bad Hand and his comrade, near that 
vicinity, the year previous, and to further satisfy 
themselves in payment with interest in full, drove 
off fifteen head of work catde belonging to the 
contractors of the logging camp. 

A company of visitors, including the scribe ot 
these pages were waked from an early morning 
slumber at Malnorie's place, by the arrival of a 



276 Frontier and Indian Life. 

skiff from the Little Missouri logging camp bear- 
ing the wounded Posy, and two attendants. The 
agency physician being in a maudlin mood, a fur- 
ther journey of seventeen miles must be made to 
reach the army surgeon at Fort Stevenson. 

An expected steamer — the Katie P. Kountz — 
Captain Braithwaite in command, reached Fort 
Berthold from above during tht; evening, and Posy 
was taken aboard for the boat's run by moonlight 
to the military post. It came about, also, that the 
party with whom I was traveling, took passage on 
the same steamer. The moon shone down from 
a clear sky, full and fair-faced. The air was crisp 
and still. The hard groans of the dying man, in- 
terrupted only by the time clank of the boat's 
machinery — the escaping steam — now and then 
the hooting of an owl as we glided by a timbered 
point — the whistle of a deer or the yelp of a wolf 
as we rounded the bends, — hold passive memory 
from the night poor Posy's spirit took Hight. A 
prepared grave; a headboard marked "Killed by 
Indians," and the man who unwittingly met death 
that his comrades might live, became but a misty 
personality before his earthly covering was man- 
tled with green. 




Upper Missofri Steamboat. 



CHRONICLE OF THE SPANISH WQODYARD. 

ONE October day in the year 1868, a handsome 
made and roomy skift, in which were seated 
three men with accompanying bales and blankets, 
and boxes containing- tools and provisions, quietly 
drifted from its moorings at the Fort Buford land- 
ing and followed the current made rapid by the 
junction of the Yellowstone river with the Mis- 
souri. The steering oar alone was used by these 
boatmen as though in no haste to loose sight of 
these friendly bastions where they had passed many 
months in comparative quiet under protection of 
the alert soldiery that composed the garrison. 
The day was calm, cloudless and mildly warm. 
The water serenely becalmed, save in the boiling 
channel's course, lent inactive languidness to the 
silent trio w4io watched their own shadows dance 
in the great liquid mirror spread around about 
them. Whatever turn their revieres in fancy took, 
none may know. The tall blond Teuton whose 
hand played idly with the steering oar, perchance 
in iancy, was back again along the green banks of 
the blue Danube, with the playmates of his youth 
watching the gliding vessels in whitened sails pass 
them by. or listening to the reveberation of the 
church and school bells with their solemn tones. 
Or, perhaps, in looking into the water his eyes were 
searching beyond his moving shadow, and follow- 
in o- fortune's hidden hand through his present voy- 



277 Frontier and Indian Life. 

age to the isolated cabin in a cottonwood forest 
where financial betterment that was fondly hoped 
•would come quickly to improve his present sit- 
uation. 

The voyager com panions of the German, too, 
were dreamine- Once more in faultless raiment, 
hand in hand with blanketed maids, they reeled in 
mazy fandango in the Trinidad hall, within the 
shadow of New Mexico's Rattoon range. Strains 
of sweet music, giddy, black eyed senoritas, bad 
whiskey, boisterous and aggressive band of Mis- 
souri and Kansas bullwhackers — jealousy — knife, 
pistol, fight and flight. Whatever hopes in life 
buoyed up the two Mexican plainsmen — fDr such 
they were — rested in lands far away from the 
vivid memories of the fandango at Trinidad, in 
the night of the full moon of September, 1864. 

One year later from the opening of this chron 
icle of 1868, — a trim and handsome stern 
wheel steamer, under the watchful eyes of skillful 
pilots at the wheel, was plowing along the ruffled 
surface of the Missouri's upper waters. The little 
cabin on the boat's hurricane roof had been tightly 
girded by heavy oak planks to protect the two 
men within, at the guiding wheel, from kirking 
foes hidden in timber or coulee co\'erts along that 
inhospitable shore. The steamer's prow, contin- 
uously changing its direction, and like the bewil- 
dered figure in blind man's bluft, twistino; around 



CflROMCLE CF rilK SpAMSM WOODYARD. 278 

with the chaiigingr o( channel waters, and avoiding 
the ever present hidden snags and bars of sub- 
meroed sand. 

In this steamer's engine room on that October 
clay of which we now make record, sat three men 
on a pile of wood in an earnest though not an 
animated conversation. One was a Bavarian; ont; 
an Irishman; one hailed from Michigan State, and 
was a native there. The Bavarian was the boat's 
fireman and was resting a moment or so from his 
work. As the conversation lulled the fireman 
again applied himself to his task, but before so 
doing, said to his companions who had arizen and 
were moving off to some other part of the vessel: 

"We are passing the Tobacco Gardens now. 
and our boat will reach the Spanish Woodyard 
by sundown." 

Within the time specified by the speaker, a well 
curved bend with a heavy body of stately cotton- 
wood trees came to the boatmens' view, and out 
in bold relief upon the cut bank was piled great 
ricks of dry cordwood and some distance in the 
background a high, roomy, square constructed 
inclosure of picketed logs. At the reveberating 
shrill sound of the steamer's whistle three men 
emero-ed from a ponderous wicket gate of the 
forbidding looking structure, and after seeing the 
preparadons made by the crew for landing, walked 
leisurely toward the river bank. As the steamer's 
landino- planks were thrown a.shore and the tow 
line made fast, three ' men walked out from the 



279 • Frontier and Indian Life. 

boats gangway, each with a bundle of blankets 
slung over their shoulders, and each carrying a 
vaHse or partly filled gunny sack in their right 
hands, and all moved slowly — almost hesitatingly 
forward to greet these three men of the .woods. 

"Take up thy bed and walk !" 
Such was an order given in a jocular mimic 
manner by a mounted mail carrier to a gaudy 
dressed companion; who had clambered off irom 
a pack pony that was being held in hand by the 
facetious speaker. The dismounted man stooped 
to quench his thirst in a bubbling rivulet that sprang 
from the base of a bluff among broken lands. This 
gushing water was called Cuyzic's Springs; the 
rough, uneven lands about, marked the course of 
the twisted lines of the Tobacco Gardens creek — 
and the time, November 9th, 1869. 

The mail carrier riding one pony and leading 
another, with the missives and treasures of the U. 
S. postal service tightly strapped to a pack saddle 
jogged along;- the unused grass grown trail, soon 
passed out of sight--and we might correctly say 
out of mind, of the lone man by this fountain 
among the hills. 

"Let's see" soliloquized the pedestrian, as he 
arose and slung a roll of blankets over his shoul- 
der, "fourteen miles through this snow before a 
chance for grub pile." 

Though banks of snow— through crevised lands, 
with cold, wintry silence all about him strode 



Chronicle of the Spanish VVoodyard. 280 

he hopefully onward to carve out in this lowly 
way the jagged path of blind destiny. — with a 
mind wandering in gaps of intervals between 
the conscious past and almost unconscious 
present, until shadows of darkness settled about 
him but black and indistinct lines that marked the 
timber bends of the big frozen river, gave courage 
to his depressed, bewildered mind and strengjth 
to his jaded and exhausted legs. He was a total 
stranger in these lands, and only the instincts of 
the trained border rover enabled him to line so 
accurately the timber he was seeking, but now 
the gifts of an owl was invoked to find the isola- 
ted stockade that he knew must be somewhere in 
that neighborhood. But it was the born gifts of a 
swift or a fox rather than that of the owl, that 
here enabled the lost strano-er to tread hopefully 
forward. A sniff of smoke floating low in air 
pointed the direction he should go, and a baying 
dog apprised him that the journey of the day was 
nearinor its end. The fierce growls of the watch 
dog; a glimmer of light; an opening of the pon- 
derous wicket gate of the stockade; a dark form 
standing, gun in hand near the aperture, and the 
stern words: "Down watch, down!" with the 
further remark' in an inquiring and softer tone, 
"Who is it?" gave the pedestrian the opportunity 
to reply: 

"A tired stranger." 

A word of welcome from the inquiring sentinal 
adding that a "tired stranger was a good password 



here," the two entered the door of the enclt). e 1 
cabin to iind live men seated at the supper ;abh'. 
and in whicli; after a dash at toilet, the strano-er 
and sentinal join'-d theni at the evening- meal. 

The stranger soon announced what modve had 
brought him there. Though not a professional 
woodchopper, he was a willing one, and if ihey 
needed an extra man he would be glad to stay 
v/\[h them- -"until the boats run." 

"Stay widi us — stay with us" answered one of 
the party, "you will be number seven, and seven 
for luck, you know— -seven for luck.'' / 

"Aye, now you have it — now you have it" re- 
joined some one of the, men and then the whole 
party repeated in chorus: 

"Seven for luck! Seven for luck!" 

The winter oi 1869, in the country alxnit the 
mouth of Yellowstone river, thouoh slartino- in 
early, was, on the whole a tolerable mild winter 
for that latitude. Cold waves blovv^ing from the 
Artie seas were^ flanked by the balmy chinnook 
breezes Irom the warm artery currents of the Pa- 
citic ocean, which blew trom the west and cjntered 
the Upper Missouri valley through depressions of 
the Rocky iMountains. 

Life at the Spanish Wooclyard went on in even, 
monotenous way When the day's work was 
done and the evening meal over, with die dishes 
stowed caretully away, such of the woodchopper's 
whom nature or art had favcred with musical 
voices, sung, songs for the edihcation ni' those-- 



CiiKO.N iCLi-; :i' nil-: Spamsii Woodvarp. 282 

ol the party less g-itted, and through an arrange- 
ment previously aggreed upon, the unnausical 
'Lold "a tale" as a side contribution to diversify 
I he evening program. 

About the middle of February. 1870, came the 
expected monthly thaw, that moves vv^ith some 
regularity in connection with the moon's changes, 
but often varies in the matter of days, and vara- 
blent^ss in temperture of the chinnowk winds. 
i he lone yoke of work cattle belonging to the 
firm, from which so much depended in their win- 
try isolation, had greeted the change of weather 
with a change of feed. During the continuance 
of the cold storms they were contented to brouse 
upon the green rushes along the timber jjottoms; 
In melting- of the snow, the grasses of the bro- 
ken buties invited them to needed changes of diet. 
When the cattle's absence from their accustomed 
haunts v^as noticed and reported, Pablo, one of 
the Mexicans slung a gun over his .shoulder and 
followed the cattle's trail to the prairie. 

With the exception of the cook, the rest oi the 
party were within their separate wood lots cutting 
splitting and cribbing wood. Weaver the Bavar- 
ian, or Chriss Weaver, as he was called by his 
fellows, occu.pied the outward lot and some dis- 
tance east of the balance, and in a strip of ash 
not far from the prairie bluffs. About noontime, 
a heavy fog had settled along the timber, when 
suddenly from out the misty stillness the sound 
of half dozen rifle shots in quick succession fol- 



283 1m<omikk ami Indian Life. 

lowed by loud yelling, was heard by the choppers 
above the did of axe strokes. The unusual 
sounds had come some distance back from the 
timber. While most of the choppers paid no 
heed, thinking perhaps that Pablo had simply run 
into a band of elk or antelope, a strange present- 
iment seemed to come over Weaver. He began 
to feel restless, and would stop his axe at inter- 
vals and listen. He became suspicious of a 
clump of willow bushes until he could indure it 
longer, and laying down his axe went to where his 
revolver was hanging, took it from the scabbard 
and pointing it to imaginary assassins in the wil- 
low patch shouted out: ''Come on you red dev- 
ils'." and some other epithets oi like tenor, and 
then put on his coat started for the stockade. 
After dinner, Pablo not appearing some discussion 
was had by the choppers about his absence and 
the shots heard upon the prairie, but none among 
them deemed it necessary, as yet, to lose time in 
an investigation. 

On his return to work. Weaver went over to 
the willow patch where he had cut his didoes 
before he had quit work for his dinner. He hard- 
ly know the force that impelled him, but he went. 
Nothing did he see but tracks. But they were 
the tracks of men encased in moccasins. As they 
had approached the willows and evidently crawling 
on their hands and knees for a shot, had used 
bits of bark to protect themselves from the melt- 
ing snow. There had been three of them, and 



CliKOMCl.K CK niK Sl'AMSll WoODVAKD. 284 

every appearance indicated that they w^^re ap- 
proaching closely for a shot at the chopper, when 
his strange antics already described, had evidently 
disconcerted them, and before they could re- 
cover their mental equilibrium, he had vanished. 
The trail had marked the presence of three Indi- 
ans around the group of willow^s, and in following 
the line to the bluffs, the choppers found a fourth 
Indian that had joined with the others, evidently a 
lookout, placed to watch the actions of the chop- 
pers when an attack would be made upon the iso- 
lated Bavarian by the three selected assassins. 

A shot alarm, convening the choppers was 
sounded; all hands went to the stockade to await 
developments. At dusk all the men could answer 
to their presence at the evening meal save Pablo. 
His seat was vacant and plate untouched. 

At daylight, next morning, a search was made 
for the missing Mexican, but a fall of snow in the 
nio-ht with shiftino winds obliterated all trail. The 
Indians had disappeared, and Pablo never again 
appeared before the gloomy gates ot Spanish 
Woodyard, nor did. the prairie ever yield up his 
Hesh or his bones for mortal man to see. With 
the disappearance of Pablo, the magic number 
was broken. There would be but six for luck now. 

In the early morning of the fourth w^eek of 
the first summer month, 1870. amidst lowering 
clouds and drizzling rain, a tragedy was enacted at 
the Spanish Woodyard. The lifeless form of th«* 



2S5 1m<oi\tikk ami Indian Like. 

German lay within the picketed inclosure, bleed- 
ing from a gun shot wound, his fact^ and body- 
blotched with mud. Within the cabin, sitting or 
standing were the remaining five men. 

"It is a bad job Michigan" spoke up one of the 
party, ''but we've got to get out of it the best we 
can now. Better scalp him first — then bury and 
blame it on the Indians." 

"And get out of here," said another. 

Twenty-four hours later a steamer puffing and 
l:)lo\\ing, carried the entire party lo p^ort Buford 
and beyond, on its passenger list, and the story 
of an Indian attack on the Spanish woodyard with 
"Dutch Pete" as the \ictim was given to the mil- 
itary authorities as "news from below." 

Two months later a skift part)', in which the 
chronicler of these pages was a member, lied up 
for the night at Spanish Woodyard. The great 
river was hurling its channel waters against the 
bank of sand upon which die structure stood ' 
and the picketed posts — one by one, were sliding 
into the currant, lioatiny; with the drifts on their 
swim to the sea. The grave of the coiiinless 
dead was nearing the brink, and but a few days 
more must follow the river current to a sand 
covered mausolum. upon whose epigraph none 
shall read, for of its site none shall know. 

Another year had passed and the register of 
the scattered crew of .Spanish woodyard grew 



CllKOMCLK CI' rilK Sl'AMISH WoODYARD. 286 

foul and faded widi disuse — the return call of its 
remaining- members was never sounded — or if the 
call was made — never heeded. 

Surrounded only by those on .whom the un- 
pleasant tast of burial devolved, Rube Ferdinand 
the remaining Mexican partner at Spanish Point 
was put underneath the cold frozen ground 
within "strangi^er plot" in the cemetery at old Fort 
Peck. Th<^^ immarked graves within this village of 
the dead, in which straggled brush and wild briers, 
ha\e long hid the hillocks that covers all that re- 
mains of this trading post's defenders, in fortune 
or misfortune, who had fallen victims in the born 
loyalty ot their nature, to this great establish- 
ment's central station in the northern buffalo range 
but whose leading factors had illy registered their 
appreciation of these simple minded men, who had 
sundered faithful service in heroic death. 

In September 1871, in the court room at Yank- 
ton, the Territorial capital, — amid a silence as,op- 
pressive as the- close of a coffin for the last 
rites of burial, the man from Michigan stood up 
to face his peers in their verdict — guilty — and 
hurried from sight s Dutch Pete's murderer. 
Thus out of the stage of acdve life to a felon's 
cell was his doom, and now four in number of 
this tated crew of seven, of Spanish Woodyard. 
were stricken from the roll, and the three remain- 
ino members awaited the disposition oi the hnal 

summons. = 



287 1'"r()niif,k AM) Indian Ijii;. 

In ihr anlumn ol" 1874, while on a visit to l'"()rt 
Berthokl I was joined l)y Chriss Weaver in a pro 
jDOsed beaver trapping expedition to the south 
l)ranch of Big Knife River, but a change of plan 
found our trap line stretched out around the Lake 
of the Painted Woods. Fre\'ious to leaving the 
Indian village. Weaver had an aitercanon in 
an Aricaree lodge, in which the usual "woman 
in the case" was preceeding cause. The out- 
come of the affair was such, that my kn(^\\ ledge 
of the wild Indian character justified me in utter- 
ing words ot caution to my partner for his careless 
bandiage, and making light of the set superstitions 
of a primitive people, especially when uone in 
their own immediate presence. 

Alter assisting in attending the trap line for 
a couple ol weeks, Weaver took a sudden spell 
of discontent and abandoned a trapper's life foi- 
his old avocation, that ot wodchopper, and 
started oft for Fort Stevensc^i with the idea 
of ^e^^tablishing a woodyard in the neighborhood 
of that post. 

Oil the mornino following my late partner's 
departure 1 started out on the usual dail\- irij) of 
attending the trap line, with rendezvous quarters 
at Point Preparation. Al)out three miles above 
that place, a bend in the river, called the narrows, 
iormerly much used l)y the Indians as a crossing. 
On the east bank of the river was a narrow strij) 
of young cottonwo(^ds on a projection o\ land 
connecting with a strip ol limber covered san<-i 



CllKON rci F, CK IHK SrA>lSH W'OOD YARD. 28S 

dunes which strt^tched along about one mile in a 
parallel line with die riv^er. A fire had lately 
passed through the strip with such intensity that 
many of the trees- had been totally destroyed; 
while in some cases parts of the tree trunks were 
still :staridine, — fantastic, silent fio^ures in a weird, 
lonely locality. 

In passing to the right of this strip I saw an 
object which looked like an Indian, yet as one 
transfixed. The red man had evidently got the 
first glimpse, and with his black blanket spread 
around his form, and standing erect and immove- 
able, was a perfect imitation ot the burnt trunks 
about him. Not liking his play, though humor- 
ing^ it long enough to get some distance from him, 
when I drew my field glasses and took a careful 
survey of the statue poser He remained in this 
position undl thinking, probably, 1 was far enough 
away, and having satisfied himself on the success 
of his masking, — disappeared. 

The day following, more wary, I commenced 
attending the trap line with a reversed roitte, and 
in the same clump of burned trees, met two; In- 
dians instead of the one, as on the previous^'day, 
and both followed the same impassive statue-like 
manner of the lone fellow the day preceding. 
One of them stood close up to a burnt tree trunk 
and his presence not revealed until a look through 
the field glass brought him out plainly. The 
day after I saddled a pony and raised the traps. 
But previous to doing so, discovered four Indians 



289 Frontier AxND Indian Life. 

standing out in plain view on a high sand dune 
among the burnt tree clump. 

The action ot these Indians savored of the 
mysterious. My stockade home was three miles 
away, and there was but two other ranches within 
twenty miles. While their manner of action was 
not friendly, I would have been at their mercy 
were they disposed to be hostile. The oppor- 
tunity to waylay a trapper attending his traps is a 
very easy task for hostile Indians v/hen they are so 
disposed. From their actions it was very evi- 
dent that it was not the scalp of the writer of this 
chronicle that these Indians ot the burnt clump 
were after, yet it was also very evident that from 
him tht-y would wish to hide their identity. The 
Indians in those days seldom ever passed the 
stockade without camping or callino-, unless it was 
a war party, and even these frequency called lo 
levy a war contribution and replenish their com- 
missary. But the Sioux were more chary of ac- 
quaintance, especially an up bound war party. 

A few years previous at the Painted Tree group, 
about one mile above the sand dune timber strip, 
a war party of Yanktoneys Vv'ere in hiding for 
Aricarees passing the Narrows in bull boais. 
"Shoemaker Joe" a deserter from Fort Stevenson, 
coming down in a bull boat had smoked them out, 
while himself had a long run through^brush and 
brier in an imaginary effort of saving his life. It 
was needles waste of fear and worry. Ihe Sioux 
were after Aricaree scalps — noi soklier coijblers. 



Chronicle cv riii-: Spamsh Woodvard. ' 290 

Sdrne months after the episode at the burnt 
clump an Aricaree, well up among the councils of 
his tribe, had acknowled that the mysterious party 
of four were from among his own people, but fur- 
ther on the subject he would not discourse. 

In the early years of the present century trav- 
elers and fur traders among Indian nations or 
tribes of the far west regarded the Mandans as 
the most elaborate in preparation, as well as the 
most finished and methodical in program, and 
moreover the most grotesque; most uncanny 
and most wierd in appearance and barbaric display, 
in their great medicine and other tribel dances, 
of any of the wild people in the land of the 
buffalo. l)Ut on the writer's advent in the Indian 
country in the early sixties. I learned from the 
.Sioux on the lower river, that the acme of mys- 
tery was in the medicine lodge of the Aricaree; 
that the medicine making priests of that tribe 
could catch bullets on tht-ir tongues; could walk 
with bared (eet upon heaped coals of living fire, 
yet feel no pain, because their fiesh would not 
burn; could outdo the agile otter in springing 
from the river bank into the muddy, swiriing 
stream, and brino therefrom— tightened in his drip- 
ping jaws, a huge fish, that the power of his to- 
tem of mystery had assisted him to catch in his 
dive in watery depths, with the same ease that 
would have enabled him to have plucked a posy 
from thc^ flowered plain. 



291 Fkontif-k and Indian Life. 

But after some familarity with the sights wit- 
nessed chiring this mystery making- of ihf' Ar- 
ricaree medicine men, or the dancing and ceremony 
attendant upon the young fledghng"s admittance 
among the mystic group — so thenceforth be known 
as a warrior and a man, I could see but little ihat 
would approach, even, the ordinary slight of hand 
performer. I had seen the confident young man, 
after being rubbed down by this priest of mystery, 
spring- nimbly from among the group of candi- 
dates for man's estate and a warrior's plume, rush 
to the river make the dive for the fish, that his 
"medicine" would orive him, come back with a 
dripping hide and a woful face, sit down and cry 
with riiortification — in all sincerity — before the 
intensely interested audience 

The scene as above discribed, the writer 
had silently witnessed in the Aricaree medicine 
lodge, at the midnight hour in August, 1874. I 
had been pleased to control my own feelings, 
but was mortified that my companion of this oc- 
casion could not masque his features or restrain 
his mirth- Had he done so — in all probability, 
the preceeding statements about Chris Weaver, 
would have closed his connection with this chron- 
icle. r= 

Midway between Fort Stevenson and the site 
of old Fort Berthold, on the west side of the 
Missouri, a low narrow point ot" scraggy timber 
nestles along the steep and ragged line of high- 
lands that curve and twist with the river's course. 



Frontikr and Indian Life. 292 

Sometime during the winter of 1874-5, two ^vood- 
yards had been located in the point. One was 
owned and conducted by two partners — George 
Morgan and Gros Venture Thompson. The rival 
yard was owned and operated by Chris Weaver. 
Neither of the parties had choppers employed; 
the boating prospects not justifying the outlay. 

On one of the closing days of April, Weaver 
made a journey to Fort Berthold, and the occa- 
sion now noted as his final visit in the flesh. Two 
or three days later, Morgan, having occasion to 
visit Weaver's place, stumbled upon his dead 
body on the prairie at the entry of the path lead- 
ino- through the timber to his yard. Upon a 
l^noll — stiff and cold — with his face to the sun, 
lay the second victim of mystery, but fifth in the 
order of rotation of the stricken Spanish Wood- 
yard crew. A bullet had crashed through his 
brain. Powder burned hair marked the close range 
of the weapon. Four distinct shaped moccasin 
tracks told the number of the dead man's assail- 
ants; a mark on the upturned face — so skillfully 
imprinted that none but the initiated could 
know, translated the cipher that would chronicle 
apother to the long list oi prescribed frontier- 
men upon whose luckless head an Indian medicine 
lodge through chosen assassins had executed its 
tribel judgment. . 
Thus closed the record of the events of disaster 
that had befallen the personnal of the "seven for 



293 ' I'KONTIEK AM) IXDIAN LlIE. 

luck'' crew of woodchoppers of Spanish Point 
revealed to the chronicler of these pages up to 
August lo th, 1889/=' 

*0n a retrospective tour, as well as a journey 
for information in connection with some incidents 
of early Sioux Indian outbreaks in Minnesota, 
Iowa, and the Dakotas, the wriier of this chronicle 
after a 700 mile trip with pony and buckboard 
drove into the little town of Elk Point, South Da- 
kota, on the evening of July 18th, 1896. In this 
retrospective journey, the writer had kept an eye 
open to see, and an ear poised to hear of certain 
characters believed to be still living, and who in 
some way had figured among the early day incidents 
already recorded in this book as well as its compan- 
ion ones. Within a few miles of that town I had 
hoped to learn of two characters whom mention 
was made in connection with two separate events of 
other day life in the valley of the Upper .Missouri. 

After some inquiry I was told that a lame man 
would appear from the country at a certain saloon 
at sundown, who could give some information 
concerning at least one of the characters sought. 
Meeting the man referred to on the street, I asked 

him for the whereabouts of a Mr. C , wlio h^.d 

resided on the Upper Missouri in ihe early -seventies. 

"Just what I would like to know myself* he re- 
replied quickly, "he left here for the last time about^ 
twelve years ago, and lia« never ^ been heard ot 
(since that date. We think him dead. Why do 
you ask."' 

'"My reasons are partly personal, part}" chrono- 
logical,*' I answered. "All. C- was number six 

of the Spanish Woodyard crew.** 

About fifteen days later, witii the shades of 
evening an(! a tiireatening thu!id(^r stonti hurrviiio- 



CiiKOMci i: CI- Till-: Spanish Woodvari). 294 

pony and myself forwai-d, 1 drove into the pictur- 
esque town of Sioux Rapids, Iowa, so nicely located 
on the hanks of the Little Sioux river. The main 
livery stable in the town was reached in time to 
save ourselves from a downpour of drenching rain. 
Within the stable near the office sat a group of men 
talking — some were young — some old. They were 
in desultory conversation. An old gentleman in the 
party made some reference to the river Soldier and 
of his acquaintance there. The name of the Sol- 
dier river drew the chronicler's attention, for upon 
its banks were the association of a memory that 
is never recalled but in sadness. But it was not of 
this that the gentleman from the Soldier river was 
questioned. 

During a lull. I asked pardon of the old gentle- 
man for interrupting him after which the following 
conversation ensued between us: 

'"Do joii know the W 's on the Soldier?'' 

•'Yes sir!" 

"Do you know of a member of that family who 
was on the Upper Missouri in the early seventies?" 

"I do." 

"Where is he now!';' 

'•In his grave. Now stranger I will have a ques- 
tion. Why do ^-ou ask about Billy W ?" 

•'Because he was Number Seven of the Spanish 
Woodyard crew." 

'"That is strange. While in the State Asylum 
for the Insane, his attendant said Billy kept re- 
peating before he died: 'Number 7 — number 7. Sev- 
en for luck — seven for luck!' " 

The' old gentleman hesitated a moment then low- 
ering his voice, added. '-Imay say, Billy W 

was mv oldest son." 



THE PEACEMAKERS. 

WHILE the American aborigines are a war- 
like race, a knowledge of whatever tribe 
of these people where opportunity has favored, 
the writer with a personal acquaintance of indi- 
vidual members, or an intimate general knowl- 
edge of the tribe as a whole, I had noted that 
the merciful and divine mission of the unselfish 
peacemaker is respected even among the most 
turbulent and boisterous ot the fig^hting element. 

In the days of restful quiet from savage strife 
among these tribes of red men, the peacemaker 
is sought out from the quiet of his lodge, and his 
advice serves as guide on all public matters affect- 
ing the well being of the community. Thus it is 
that we often mark so many kindly and benev- 
olent faces among the principal chiefs of the 
wild American Indian tribes. During the calam- 
ity of war or some great moving crisis in the af- 
fairs of the tribe, the war chief forges himself to 
the front by the dread necessity of the hour, but 
unless he has some marked judicial qualities of 
mind, his stay in the charmed circle of eminence 
is brief. 

The Sioux or Dakota Indians, the most numer- 
ous as well as the ablest governed of the tribcis 
of the great western plains, and who are by tlieir 




Joseph.— Chief of the Nez Perces. 



TlIK I'l-ACIMAKKKS 296 

training a warlike people, — fully sustain us in 
these sentiments, as a studied review of their past 
history or a glance at the personnal of their ablest 
chieftains will show^ The greatest warrior that the 
Sioux have yet produced, as far as any record we 
have of that nation's history, was probably the 
the Teton chief Crazy Horse, whose unchallenged 
boast that he slew thirty-four enemies with his own 
hands before he entered upon and planned resis- 
tence to the forces of Generals Crook, Terry and 
Gibbon in 1876, that ended in the slaughter of 
Custer's command at the Little Bio Horn river. 
Though acknowledged their ablest war chief, 
his assassination a short time after the surrender 
of the Sioux, and the little grief or affection shown 
by his people over his death, proved that he had 
no claim on their hearts beyond a meagre grati- 
tude and some admiration for his prowess in war. 
Pawnee Killer, of the western Brule Sioux, and 
White Antelope, the chief of the Northern Chey- 
ennes in 1876, were of the mental order of Crazy 
Horse, and ended their career much as he did. 
But judicial brained chiefs of the order of Red 
Cloud and Spotted Tail, of the Tetons, or Strike- 
the-Ree, Two Bears and Medicine Bear of the 
Yanktons; Red Stone of the South Assinnaboines, 
Standing Buffalo of the Santees, or the venerable 
chief Grass of the Blackfeet Sioux, who had s;ov- 
erned their tribes for a life time, and whose prin- 
cipal trouble daring all of their respective years of 
authority was in restraining the military ardor of 



297 Frontikk and Ixdian Life. 

their young men, which plainly show that leaders 
peacefully disposed wear longer in the affections, 
even among these people commonly called sav- 
ages, than does the turbulent blood hunter be he 
ever so able. 

Other tribes less known follow the same lines. 
Son of the Star, an Aricaree chief, was another ex- 
ample of the peacemaker chief, and the writer 
believes no leader of any people was more idol- 
ized while living or whose memory is more revered 
since death than was this honest hearted chief by 
the little neighborhood of Aricaree farmers around 
Six Mile Creek, or the winding coulee of Pour 
Bears. 

Ihen, again, let us review the remarkable ca- 
reer of the second Joseph, chief of the Nez 
Perces or Pierced Noses, of mountanious Idaho. 
The son of an able chief — raised up from infancy 
in a mission school, with daily lessons from Chris- 
tian teachings from habitually devout teachers — 
this young man of quiet ways became his peoples' 
chieftain, without military training or experience. 
But fragrant impositions from white neighbors, 
and from whose injustice an appeal to the statutes 
1)V the Nez Perce, was met by an appeal to race 
prejudice by the clominent and aggressive laiul 
grabber or dieir dispensatory hirelings, with no 
course left to lorn manhood hut an appeal to 
the law of a just resistence to a causeless wrong, 
did he take i;p r.rms in the defense of himself and 
people. Wiilvir, lour monlhs from the d^y of his 



TiiK Pkackm \ki:ks 298 

first resistenee to the military authorities repre- 
senting- seventy milHons of people, claiming the 
most advanced stand in the grand march of mod- 
ern civilization this mountain chief acknowledged 
himself beaten and laid down his arms. To stand 
with him and to fall with him were less than two 
hundred men. They were poorly armed, badly 
provisioned and scantily clothed. They were 
handicapped by the care of their families and their 
herds. Their natural allies had turned against 
them to fawn for favor from a race whose numbers 
were as trees of the mountains, and whose wealth 
was poured out in golden wreaths from a cornuco- 
pian horn. Ihe Bannocks of the mountains sent 
forth companies of scouts clothed in blue to fight 
the Nez Perces from their lands. The Moun- 
tain Crows — fighters by nature — were hired in 
hundreds to intercept and harass Joseph and his 
people in their flight from their homes. Trained 
scouts from among the Aricarees and Chey- 
enne^ v\;ere hired to track them down in their 
flii^ht. 'Besides all these hired minions of their 
own race,,pitted against the dauntless Nez Perces, 
there came bearing down upon them, four seperate 
::-.rmies of a great government, with their cannons; 
their itp^roved rifles; their filled caissons of ammu- 
nitions-and long trains of supplies. Each and 
every one of these four separate commands of 
trained soldiers were led by veterans scarred in a 
more creditable strife — had double the numbers 
of fighting men to pit against red Josesph. How- 



299 Frontier AND .Indian Life. 

ard and his command had been mel^and checked 
ilear Mt. Idaho. Gibbon had been beaten back at 
Big Hole. Gen. Sturges had been out-witted and 
out-manoevered along the Yellowstone. Weary 
and jaded, tired out with a journey of several hun- 
dred miles of battles by day and flight by night, 
Joseph and his men took a breath of rest among 
the dc^files of the Bear Paw foot hills. Gen. Miles 
with men and horses all fresh and strong were 
upon them. Joseph stood in dispairing quandry. 
His enemies, the white soldiers and their red 
allies had his camp surrrounded. and they were in 
numbers, three to one, to his own fighting men. 
Two days more. Gen. Howard could reach there. 
They then would be outnumbered ten to one. His 
enemy had artillery. He had none. The British 
line was not far away. They could not reach it 
now, but Sitting Bull and his incorrigable hosts, 
were encamped just, across the line near Woody 
Mountain. They were allies ia> a . like cause. 
Scouts had already ran the gauntlet of. the enemy's 
cordon, to apprise the Sioux ot, their dilemma. 
Would help come ? Meantime shot and shell 
rained down on the hapless camp. Joseph's wife 
lay dying on the ground beside him — mangled 
and torn by a bursting shell. Other]^ wives than his 
and other children than his, were dead about him. 
Under a flag ot truce he approached Gen. Miles 
in two separate intervals of the strife, for terms of 
honorable surrender. Twice had he returned to 
the fight. But the panting bloodhounds of his 



The Peacemakers 300 

own race were Oircling- his camp, and for the sake 
of the helpless from the heartless, went out 
the third time — gnn in hand — and surrendered. 
"From where the sun now stands" said this 
man of Spartan mould as he gave up his gun, "I 
will fight no more forever." How well he has 
stood by his word, let the story of his captivity be 
the answer. 

During the many years that the writer followed 
the hunter and trapper vocation in the Upper 
Missouri river country, it was always a pleasant 
meet when the lonely lodge, of Long Feather the 
Peacemaker was sighted. 

Come rain or snow; come wind or calm; come 
hot or cold, clouds or sunshine, the frank, benev- 
olent countenance of the Peacemaker wore the 
same placid cast; and with extended hands gave 
the same hearty grip in meeting and at parting. 

What influence brought Long Feather to first 
assume the peacemaker role, I never knew. Cer- 
tain I am, it was not from any missionary effort of 
the dominent race. Rather would I think the same 
spirit moved him to action that had prompted the 
Shawanee Tecumseh's brother— the Prophet of the 
Alleghany — to stalk silently through wide forests 
between the g^reat lakes and the Ohio valley to 
impart to the Indian villagers what the Great 
Spirit would have his red children do — make peace 
and be strong together — that the pale faces may 
become afraid and turn back from their western 



30I Frontier and Indian Life. 

march of despoiling tlie Indians of their homes. 
This was during- the days which cuhninated in the 
death struggle at Tipppecanoe, when Tecumseh's 
red confederacy in the lands of the sycamores, 
went down. 

In honor Feather the Peacemaker's case, 
whether this spirit of peace came to him through 
the pregnant mother who had watched war par'ics 
march out from her husband's camp searching 
for the blood or scalps of her relatives and friends, 
or whether it came later in life, I do not know. 
I only knew that the spirit of good will was 
wnth him on our first acquaintance in 1870. and 
was with him amidst all the turbulence that sur- 
rounded him in his subsequent years of primi- 
tive missionary lite. 

Perhaps his environments brought this about. 
A ratified peace between Indian nations who were 
heriditary foes, was as its best but an armstice, at 
its worst, a mere cover to strike an unsuspect- 
ing blow- Ihe mother of Long Feather was an 
Aricaree maid. Whether she had been a captive, 
taken in some foray, or by the marriage law of the 
wild Indian, secured to some covetcms Sioux 
through presentation to her parents the stipulated 
price for a useful andhandsome bride, we cannot 
now determine, Inil that he was of both nations, 
in the order ot parentage above stated he had 
frequently told us in his communicative moods. 
Thus, the blood of the Sioux and the Aricarree 
coursefi through his veins. A lini;'uist. fluent alike 




LONG FEATHER. -Tlie Peacemaker. 



The Peacemakers 302 

in either tongue, and with the sacredness of inter 
tribel custom in such cases, his home at times 
among the dirt covered lodges of the hunted Ar- 
icarees, and then again would change with his 
family and appear as of their own, in the skin 
tepees of the ever restless Sioux. Either nation 
shared their conhdence in his integrity. To each 
of these peoples he would plead for cessation 
of bloody strife and the hand of amity, friendship, 
and neighborly intercourse. 

"What fools my Indian people are" said he fre- 
qu'-ntly, in talking about the Sioux and Aricaree 
war in the days of our earlier acqaintance, "to fight 
like little chickadees over the offals of a deer. 
When the magpies come they will eat up offal, 
chickadees and all." His analogous comparison at 
times varied to the lands and buffalo The more 
fierce and more destructive the war among Indians 
themselves," said he, "the easier and smoother for 
the whites when they came to take possession of 
the Indians inheritance and use it for their own." 
While these argumentative facts or analogous illus- 
trations were some of Long Feather's everyday 
utterances in the villages, to influence the rest of 
the Indians to his way of thinking; yet aside from 
this crude presentation of his philosophical reason- 
ing to catch attention from the average Indian 
mind, at heart he was truly a man of peace, 
for peace's sake. It was born in him he said to 
have a horror of war. 



303 Frontier and Indian Life. 

In the month of August, 1880. I think it was, 
that the writer of these Hnes, had his last inter- 
view with Long Feather the Peacemaker. In a 
chance meeting along the Missouri river trail late 
in the afternoon, we mutually made camp. His 
Sioux wife and their two boys were his company. 
They soon had "their white tepee erected to catch 
a shaded breeze from the glaring rays of a scorch- 
ing sun. 

The place of meeting was at the Lake of the 
Beaver Dam. Here a lone beaver family, had 
many years lived on mayrtrs to their owu in- 
dustry and gentle ways, but who had long warded 
off the dreaded fur hunter in his repeated as- 
saults upon their well entrenched home. The 
lake was small, deep and gourd shaped. The 
prairie with some scattered oaks lined one bank 
while on the opposite shore tangled willows and 
a dense growth of tall young cotton woods studded 
the background. Through a meadow of waving 
green came forth murmuring sounds of a little 
clear water rivulex, and near its passage to the 
lake, by beavers' ingenjiity, a waterfall was made, 
from whose hushed cadence, the Muttering leaves 
of overspreading oaks added their soodiing strain 
in commingling song. C)n the green diven near 
by — pipe in hand — Long Feather sat telling 
of his life work. In the lull of converse, while he 
sat smoking in silence — he seemed the very per- 
sonaiion of I'eace; so quiet; so impassive and 
nuH'k appeariuLi. A beautiful memory to linger 



The Peacemakers 304 

upon — this scene of the Peacemaker telling his 
closing- story. Bright murmuring waters; sighing 
trees, yellow clad hills and green vales. Around 
and about our camp fire, and along the water's 
edge— thousands upon thousands of yellow Au- 
gust flowers nodding to the evening breeze. Out 
on such a scene came the spirit of Wordsworth 
and his dream of the daffodils. I declaimed his 
verses then, — I repeat them now: 

"I wandered lonely as a cloud 

That floats on high o'er vaiei and hills 
When all^at once I «aw a crowd, 
A host of g^olden daffodils, 

Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 

Continuous as the star* that shine 
And twinkle on the milky way, 
They stretched in never ending line, 
Along the margin of the bay, 
Ten thousand saw I at a glance. 
Tossing^ their heads in sprightly dance. 

The waves besides them danced — but they 

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee. 
A poet could not but be gay 
In such a jocund company: 

I gazed and gazed, but little thought 
What wealth the show to me had brought. 

For oft when on my couch I lie, 
In vacant or in pensive mood, 
They flash upon'that inward eye, 
Which is the bliss of solitude. 
And then my heart with pleasure fills 
And dances with the daffodil*." 



305 Frontier an'd In'dian LiI'E. 

After an interval of many years 1 again visited 
the Lake of the Beaver Dam. The waters of 
this romantic dell had disappeared— perhaps forev- 
er. On its sandy bed, straggling plants of flags 
and fox tail, catch the breeze where once the 
blue waters rolled. The scattered trees of oak 
no longer lined the prairie's edge. Decayed 
stumps alone remained to mark the spot where 
the woodman had not "spared the tree." Save 
here and there a deformed straggler, the cotton- 
wood forest, too, that had lined the lake''s south 
shore had passed away. A tangled mass of mud 
and dead brush mark the ruined home of the 
beavers that had once gave life to their environs 
here, and enjoyed their moonlight siestas duri^ng 
warm summer nights. A dry embankment — rooted 
and torn by swine — and leveled here and there by 
freshets from melting snows, show traces of the 
solid masonary work, and remain as monuments to 
these born architects and mark the hig;h gifts with 
which their Creator had endowed them. The 
beavers good work though on lesser compass than 
the dykes of the Holland lowlands, were fashioned 
much the sanies With consumate skill in methodi- 
cal engineering, they wrought fertility from their 
suroundings and brought forth herbs, flowers and 
green verdure in slerile nooks and sand banks 
:s did the home sick princess from the hanging 
gardens of old Babylon. But all is changed. No 
murmuring waterfall now. Saline crusted pools 
or stagnant ponds, reveal ruin as complete, in its 



Till-: 1^:a(i:maivKrs 306 

way, as the crushed domes of commercial Carthage 
that wrung tears from Marius, its conqueror when 
gloomily reading the closing chapter of his own life 
from the mosses of its mouldering walls. All was 
peace at Lake of the Beaver Dam. But it was the 
peace that death brought. Even my two vener- 
able companions of that camp here in August 
1 880, had lain down to their long rest. Long 
Feather had wrapped himself in his chief's robes, 
closed his eyes in his death sleep at the Standing 
Reck, vvhen assured the long inter-tribel wars 
c.morg the Red people on the Upper Missouri, 
was over, and that his good work had been w^ell 
and happily done. 

THE END. 



[KP 



1^ 



<0 



MAR 13 1902 



1 copy Da roeAT, oiv. 

'"'" '4 1902 



